In perl.perl5.porters, Philippe Bruhat wrote:

I'm very sorry to be the bearer of sad news, which I just learned
from a co-worker who was in regularl contact with Zefram.

He forwarded me this:
We are sad to announce that Zefram (Andrew Main) died yesterday
(2025-03-10) after being hit by a train. Further details are not yet
available. Everyone close to him is very shocked by this and contact
details and further arrangements will be announced in future.
He was a long-time and prolific contributor to Perl core and CPAN,
and he will be missed.

I will forward further details (memorial or place to send condolences)
as I receive them.

Christian Walde then followed up with:

Thanks for bearing the news BooK, even if it is sad news.

As an additional bit of info, his personal website's section on this 
matter is relevant: https://www.fysh.org/~zefram/personal/death

brew install pkg-config

brew install libpng
pkg-config --cflags libpng
cpan Imager::File::PNG

brew install jpeg
pkg-config --cflags libjpeg
cpan Imager::File::JPEG

brew install giflib
cpan Imager::File::GIF

GIF: Test code failed: Can't link/include 'gif_lib.h', 'stdio.h', 'errno.h', 'string.h', 'gif'...
! Configure failed for Imager-File-GIF-0.98. See /Users/you/.cpanm/work/1713652269.80239/build.log for details.

cd /Users/you/.cpanm/work/1713652269.80239/Imager-File-GIF-0.98

perl Makefile.PL -v --incpath=/opt/homebrew/include --libpath=/opt/homebrew/var/homebrew/linked/giflib/lib

make
make test
make install

o conf makepl_arg "LIBS=-L/opt/homebrew/var/homebrew/linked/giflib/lib INC=-I/opt/homebrew/include"

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

locate giflib
/opt/homebrew/var/homebrew/linked/giflib

locate gif_lib.h        
/opt/homebrew/Cellar/giflib/5.2.1/include/gif_lib.h
/opt/homebrew/include/gif_lib.h

cpan -M https://www.cpan.org -a
[download]

Task 2: Submatrix Sum
Submitted by: Jorg Sommrey

You are given a NxM matrix A of integers.

Write a script to construct a (N-1)x(M-1) matrix B 
having elements that are the sum over the 2x2 submatrices of A,

b[i,k] = a[i,k] + a[i,k+1] + a[i+1,k] + a[i+1,k+1]


Example 1

Input: $a = [
              [1,  2,  3,  4],
              [5,  6,  7,  8],
              [9, 10, 11, 12]
            ]

Output: $b = [
               [14, 18, 22],
               [30, 34, 38]
             ]
[download]

I tried to crank it up for entertainment -- to solve not "2x2", but arbitrary "WxH" sub-matrices of (relatively) large matrices. Sadly, it was too late into many stupid plots and tables, when I realized, that excessive summation isn't required at all. Sliding (moving) sum (or average, min/max, etc.) is a well known concept -- duh! not to un-educated me, alas. And so maybe "2x2", not "WxH", in the task, was selected not only because PWC tries to accommodate new learners. Anyway, I implemented "sliding submatrix sums" algorithm only at a later stage, in PDL, and didn't "backport" it to pure Perl (nor Pdlpp) because had already been somewhat fed-up with this 248-2, but decided to present sanitized results as a meditation.

Disclaimer: it's clickbait. The plot is curved, solution isn't linear, despite lack of nested loops, -- but fast.

Task 2: Group Hero
Submitted by: Mohammad S Anwar

You are given an array of integers representing the strength.

Write a script to return the sum of the powers of all possible 
combinations; power is defined as the square of the largest number 
in a sequence, multiplied by the smallest.

Example 1

Input: @nums = (2, 1, 4)
Output: 141

Group 1: (2) => square(max(2)) * min(2) => 4 * 2 => 8
Group 2: (1) => square(max(1)) * min(1) => 1 * 1 => 1
Group 3: (4) => square(max(4)) * min(4) => 16 * 4 => 64
Group 4: (2,1) => square(max(2,1)) * min(2,1) => 4 * 1 => 4
Group 5: (2,4) => square(max(2,4)) * min(2,4) => 16 * 2 => 32
Group 6: (1,4) => square(max(1,4)) * min(1,4) => 16 * 1 => 16
Group 7: (2,1,4) => square(max(2,1,4)) * min(2,1,4) => 16 * 1 => 16

Sum: 8 + 1 + 64 + 4 + 32 + 16 + 16 => 141

1. They spelled it: PERL
2. Raptors are extinct.
3. Raw onions? C'mon!

I want cool cryptic, like Perl itself:

$Perl->{5.36}

Obviously: camel code

sub setpixel {
  my ($self, %opts) = @_;

#  $self->_valid_image("setpixel") or return;

  my $color = $opts{color};
  unless (defined $color) {
    $color = $self->{fg};
    defined $color or $color = NC(255, 255, 255);
  }

#  unless (ref $color && UNIVERSAL::isa($color, "Imager::Color")) {
#    unless ($color = _color($color, 'setpixel')) {
#      $self->_set_error("setpixel: " . Imager->errstr);
#      return;
#    }
#  }

  unless (exists $opts{'x'} && exists $opts{'y'}) {
    $self->_set_error('setpixel: missing x or y parameter');
    return;
  }
...
}

sub _valid_image {
  my ($self, $method) = @_;
 
  ref $self
    or return Imager->_set_error("$method needs an image object");
 
  $self->{IMG} && Scalar::Util::blessed($self->{IMG}) and return 1;
 
  my $msg = $self->{IMG} ? "images do not cross threads" : "empty inpu
+t image";
  $msg = "$method: $msg" if $method;
  $self->_set_error($msg);
 
  return;
}
[download]

https://web.archive.org/web/20220930101235/https://metacpan.org/pod/strict

close the wayback popup. Try the hamburger menu (3 lines). Its all so dark. And takes up much space on mobile.

use strict;
use warnings;
use List::Util qw(max sample);
#use lib '/usr/local/share/perl/5.30.0';
#use Statistics::Basic::Stddev; #installs somewhere??
#use Statistics::Basic::StdDev;
use Statistics::Basic qw(:all);
use File::Slurp; #for large list of real randoms

my @rands = read_file('../stats/bytes37Mb.txt');
my ($fertilewomen) = @ARGV;
my @maxxes;
my $cyclelength = 32;
#my $duration = int(rand(1) + 0.5) == 1 ? 4 : 5;
#my $duration = sample 1, (4, 5);
$fertilewomen ||= 48;
#print "duration is $duration\n";
#my @women;

#for (1..100) {
    my @women;

#    for (1..48) {
    for (1..$fertilewomen) {    
#        my $start = int(rand(31) + 0.5);
#        my $start = int(rand($cyclelength-1) + 0.5);
#        my $start = int(rand($cyclelength));
        my $start = getrandom($_);
    #    print "$start\n";
#        my $range;
#        my $turnover = $cyclelength - $duration;
#        if ($start > 28) {    
#        if ($start > $turnover) {
#            if ($start == 29) {
#            if ($start == $turnover+1) {
#                $range = [$start, $start+1,  $start+2, 0];
#            } elsif ($start == 30) {
#            } elsif ($start == $turnover+2) {            
#                $range = [$start, $start+1,  0, 1];
#            } else {
#                $range = [$start, 0, 1, 2];
#            }
#        } else {
#            $range = [$start..$start+3];
#        }
#        push @women, $range;
#        my $duration = sample 1, (4, 5);
        my $duration = 4;
        push @women, $start..($start+$duration-1);
    }

    my %count;
    my %mcount;
    
    for my $woman (@women) {
#        my @range = @{$woman};
#        for (@range) {
#            my $moduluscyclelength = $_ % $cyclelength;
        my $moduluscyclelength = ($woman % $cyclelength);
#print $moduluscyclelength, ' ', $woman, ' ', $cyclelength, "\n";
#            $count{$_}++;            
        $mcount{$moduluscyclelength}++;
#        $count{$woman}++;
#        }
    }

    my %occupancy;

#    for (0..31) {
    for (0..$cyclelength-1) {
#        my $value = exists $count{$_} ? $count{$_} : 0;
        my $mvalue = exists $mcount{$_} ? $mcount{$_} : 0;
#        $occupancy{$_} = $value;
        print "$_ $mvalue\n";        
#        print "$_ $value $mvalue\n";
    }

#    print 'mean is ', mean(values %count), "\n";
#    print 'sd is ', stddev(values %count), "\n";
#    my %ostats;

#    for (values %occupancy) {
#        $ostats{$_}++;
#    }

#    for (sort { $a <=> $b } keys %ostats) {
##        print $_, ' ', $ostats{$_}, "\n";
#    }

#    push @maxxes, max(keys %ostats);
#}

#print join ' ', sort { $a <=> $b } @maxxes;

sub getrandom {
    my $index = shift;
    my $byte = $rands[$index];
    chomp $byte;
    return int($byte/8);
}
[download]