Shapeshifting

 

 

When the Python scripts are restored and ordered, the scripts can form a chain so that the output of each is the name of an animal and forms the input to another. The starting script takes no input and the ending script outputs O'REILLY COVERS.

Each of the generated animal outputs has appeared on the cover of an O'Reilly programming book:

• Mastiff - Building Cocoa Applications: A Step-by-Step Guide
• Aye-Aye - Exim: The Mail Transfer Agent
• Anteater - Access Database Design and Programming
• Hornbill - Samba Pocket Reference
• Caribou - T1: A Survival Guide
• Ladybug - Oracle Database Administration: The Essential Reference
• Steer - Network Printing
• Seal - Learning VBScript
• Reindeer - Designing Large-scale LANs
• Panther - Advanced Perl Programming
• Kangaroo - Power Programming with RPC

The first letters of these books gives the message BEAST ON LDAP. The animal on the cover of LDAP System Administration is the answer MINK.