Entrants to the competition aimed to write "devious, inhuman, disgusting, amusing, amazing, and bizarre Perl code".
[1] It was run by The Perl Journal and took its name from the International Obfuscated C Code Contest.
Entrants were advised to try and demonstrate a range of Perl knowledge, while being humorous, surprising and deceitful.
Code which purposely crashed the judges' machines was discouraged.
The competition was typically divided into four categories, which, in the last contest, included: