Laziness, Impatience, and Hubris

[grep]

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;map{$a++}
('g','r','e','p')
;$a=$a-$a--+$a++;$a++;$b=int
(rand($a));$b++;map{chomp;@INC
=split(/\D/);push(@_,(int($INC
[$b]/$b),int($INC[$b+$a]/$b)))
;}(<DATA>);map{printf("%c",$_)}@_;
__DATA__
L076I146H216a097m218u351
z122p224b294i105a194r342
n110t232i315e101i210s345
s115e202(096s115n220#096
&032c198$096^032e202)096
^032#064?096<010>020\030

UPDATE: some small changes to muck it up a bit more

grep

grep> cd /pub grep> more beer

[domm]

use strict;

Enable strict mode. There are no errors because of undefined vars because you used $a and $b, which are always defined, as they are used by sorting.
For the same reason, you choose @INC;

map{$a++}('g','r','e','p');

You set $a to 4.

$a=$a-$a--+$a++;

or written a little bit cleaner


$a=$a - $a-- + $a++;


But still rather hard to understand, because of the way auto-in/decrement worksin suffix mode:
What happens is (if I got it right):


$a=$a - $a-- + $a++;

$a is now 3, but 4 is substracted


$a=3 - 4 + $a++;

$a=-1 + $a++;


$a is incremented to 4, but 3 (the old value) is used in the addition


$a= -1 + 3

$a is now 2


$a++;

And now its 3


$b=int(rand($a));

sets $b to a value between 0 and 2.

$b++

increments it by one, so it is now 1, 2, or 3. Used to decide which virtue to print.

map {chomp;@INC=split(/\D/);push(@_,(int($INC$b/$b),
int($INC$b+$a/$b)));}(<DATA>);

Here you map over all elements of the DATA array, doing the following things:


chomp;

remove the line brake at the end of the line


@INC=split(/\D/);

Set @INC, by splitting the current line on non-numeric values, thereby removing all charaters from the stuff in DATA. This made me wonder, because first I thought you where using the characters hidden between the numbers as your data. But, as I then found out, you just tossed me a red herring that I gullibly swalloed.


push(@_,(int($INC$b/$b),int($INC$b+$a/$b)))

Now you modify your data structure. In the DATA-section, you stored the ascii values of each character (multiplied by either 1,2 or 3), like so (using the real characters): LIHamu (and these are NOT the 'L', the 'I', the 'H' etc you can see in the DATA section).
With this code segment, you first get item number $b (and divide by $b, so it is now the real ascii value), then you get $b+$a. As $a is 3, this gets the next value of the selected virtue. The shorter virtues are space-padded at the end.

map{printf("%c",$_)}@_;

Here you finally map over all values of @_, printing the character with the ascii value of $_. A nice way to prevent the much-overused chr. Voila.

Nice work! Especially as it's not just one more japh.

I espcially liked the auto-in/decrement stuff and the wrong track you laid in DATA.

--
#!/usr/bin/perl -w just another perl hacker
print+seek(DATA,$=*.3,@-)?~~<DATA>:$:__DATA__