GoKawiilSIGBOVIK 2019 paper finds 93% of paint splatters parse as valid Perl
An April Fools research paper presented at SIGBOVIK 2019 used OCR software to scan 100 paint-splatter images and test whether the resulting text strings would run as Perl code. The study found 93% of the splatters parsed as valid Perl programs, and the author published seven examples that failed, along with a gallery and image/code dataset.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
SIGBOVIK is a long-running parody computer-science conference, so the paper is best read as comedic commentary on Perl's notoriously permissive and terse syntax, which can make almost any short string of symbols technically parseable. It pokes fun at how loosely some languages enforce structure compared to stricter languages, using absurdist 'research methods' as the joke.
- A SIGBOVIK 2019 paper tested whether paint splatters, read via OCR, form valid Perl code.
- 93% of 100 sampled paint-splatter images parsed as valid Perl programs.
- The paper and supplementary gallery/dataset are published online, including the seven non-parsing exceptions.
Source: mcmillen.dev, 2026-11-11
Published there as: “93% of Paint Splatters Are Valid Perl Programs (2019)”
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