Just another Perl hacker

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Just another Perl hacker, or JAPH, typically refers to a Perl program that prints "Just another Perl hacker," (the comma is canonical but is occasionally omitted). Short JAPH programs are often used as signatures in online forums, or as T-shirt designs. The phrase or acronym is also occasionally used (without code) for a signature.

JAPH programs are classically done using extremely obfuscated methods, in the spirit of the Obfuscated C Contest. More recently, as the phenomenon has become well-known, the phrase is sometimes used in ordinary examples (without obfuscation).

The idea of using tiny Perl programs that print a signature as a signature was originated by Randal L. Schwartz, in his postings to the newsgroup comp.lang.perl.^[1] He wrote many of the JAPHs which are shown below.