In this paper, we aim to answer a long-standing open problem in the programming languages community: is it possible to smear paint on the wall without creating valid Perl?
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 (OCR) 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.
If you like this then I’d recommend reading more papers published at sigbovik. Favorites include “do programming socks make you better at programing?”, “making hard drives by increasingly stupid and unworkable means” and “a formal mathematical proof that I am transgender”