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

Article summary

A paper presented at SIGBOVIK 2019 found that 93% of paint splatters are valid Perl programs, using optical character recognition software to analyze the splatters. The paper's authors employed an empirical approach to answer the question of whether it's possible to smear paint on a wall without creating a valid Perl program. The study used a dataset of 100 paint-splatter images and found that most of them could be parsed as valid Perl code. The paper also presented examples of paint splatters that are not valid Perl programs.

Main themes

• Perl programming language
• Paint splatter analysis
• Valid programs
• Programming language syntax
• Gödel numbering
• Language performance

What commenters say

• Perl is still a capable and intuitive language, despite its perceived decline in popularity, and its syntax contributes less to readability issues than other factors.
• Some concatenative languages have the property that every token sequence is a valid program, but this does not necessarily apply to all concatenative languages.
• The concept of Gödel numbering implies a unique mapping of algorithms to integers, and not all languages that assign meaning to arbitrary sequences of bits qualify as Gödel numberings.
• Perl's strong documentation culture and vast repository of open-source libraries make it a valuable tool for certain tasks, particularly in the sysadmin world.
• The choice of programming language often depends on the specific task and ecosystem, with languages like Java and C# offering strong IDE support and documentation, while languages like Perl and Python prioritize flexibility and ease of use.
• The perceived decline of Perl is not necessarily due to its technical limitations, but rather a result of a 'PR war' and the rise of other popular languages.
• Strongly typed languages may offer advantages in terms of memory safety and code correctness, but they can also limit productivity and flexibility in certain contexts.
• Perl's ecological niche in the programming language space remains relevant, particularly in areas like sysadmin tasks and data processing, where its unique features and CPAN repository provide significant value.