93% of paint splatters are valid Perl programs (2019)

# · 🔥 513 · 💬 123 · 16 days ago · www.mcmillen.dev · ellieh · 📷
We answer this question in the affirmative: it is possible to smear paint on the wall without creating a valid Perl program. We employ an empirical approach, using optical character recognition software, which finds that merely 93% of paint splatters parse as valid Perl. We analyze the properties of paint-splatter Perl programs, and present seven examples of paint splatters which are not valid Perl programs. Here's all the paint splatters on a single page, along with the valid Perl source code corresponding to each. "Not valid" is written in red for those images which did not parse as valid Perl programs. If different OCR settings recognized multiple valid Perl programs, I chose the one that seemed the most "Interesting", according to my own aesthetic sense. There are a few paint splatter Perl programs that I didn't recognize as "Interesting" until after the SIGBOVIK submission deadline.
93% of paint splatters are valid Perl programs (2019)



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