$_="this super-code example shows clearly how encoded text is,
siince a normal perl-codeblock should never-ever-ever contain it's
method embedded within -its- decoder as is. right, you're wrong
because my obstuf exempleifies it. honest programs should a) envoke
and b-work prescripted though never through it.";

=
Each word's length is how he encodes "just another perl hacker". Somet
+imes he mis-spells the words to get the right length: for example sii
+nce.
=cut

my@a=map{(/\.|,/)?0:length}(m;([-\w']+|(?:,|\.));g);

=
the regex matches each word, so each word is passed to map. Periods an
+d commas return 0, which is the null character, thus not taking up an
+y space.  He does this so he can punctuate his string.  As I said ear
+lier, the length of each word is returned.
=cut

print chr hex sprintf('%x'x2,$$,shift@a)while($$=shift@a);

=
Here he goes through @a by twos, performing
sprintf ('%x%x',$$, shift @a)
each time through.  The result is a hexadecimal number for each word, 
+formed by the word's length.  Then he uses hex to turn that hex numbe
+r into decimal, and chr to turn it into it's ascii equivalent. 
=cut
[download]

If I have made any mistakes, please inform me; I'm new to obfuscated code myself, but I liked this very much--good job iamcal.

Update: Good job tachyon. That's what I was trying to say, but I think you expressed it so much more clearly than me.

The 15 year old, freshman programmer,
Stephen Rawls

Deconstruction a speciality. Rather than explain extensively
I have gone for the plain perl recoding approach to make it
blindingly obvious how this works. I like this JAPH.

cheers

tachyon

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
# this string identifies the key  encoding features basically the
# length, but also the . and , The ) is meaningless other than
# not meaning something! The final full stop does nix.         
$_="xxxx xxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xxxx xx,
xxxxxx x xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx
xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xx xx. xxxxx, xxxxxx xxxxx
xxxxxxx xx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxx xx. xxxxxx xxxxxxxx xxxxxx x) xxxxxx
xxx xxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxx xxxxx xxxxxxx xx.";
# this loop replaces the map
for (m/x+|[\.,]/g) {
    push @a, eval'(/[\.,]/) ? 0 : length $_';
}
# net result of map step is:
# @a = qw(4 10 7 5 7 3 7 4 2 0 6 1 6 14 6 15 7 4 6 8 6 5 7 2 2 0 5 0 6
+ 5 7 2 6 12 2 0 6 8 6 1 6 3 6 11 6 5 7 2 0); 

# this breaks down the second line into self evident steps
while ($foo = shift @a) {
    $hex_code1 = sprintf "%x", $foo;
    $hex_code2 = sprintf "%x", shift @a;
    $hex = $hex_code1.$hex_code2;
    $dec = hex $hex;
    $ascii = chr $dec;
    print $ascii;
} 

# Notes $$ is the $PID, I substitute $foo just because
# %x is unsigned integer in hex so sprintf %x, $foo converts $foo
# to hex. 
# The '%x'x2 is the same as "%x%x" 
# sprint "%x%x", $a ,$b; shoves both $a and $b into hex format
[download]

exellent breakdown - completely correct.