README: lead with the 1337-byte 'leet' fact

The exact byte count is the whole punchline — surface it explicitly with
a verifiable wc -c invocation rather than hiding it as '~1337 characters'
in a subordinate clause.
This commit is contained in:
Ole-Morten Duesund 2026-05-28 13:52:13 +02:00
commit a18f68badb

View file

@ -2,9 +2,21 @@
A study of [Andrew Kensler's "business card raytracer"][aek] — a complete A study of [Andrew Kensler's "business card raytracer"][aek] — a complete
recursive path-tracer with soft shadows, depth of field, anti-aliasing, recursive path-tracer with soft shadows, depth of field, anti-aliasing,
reflections, a checker floor, and a sky gradient, all crammed into ~1337 reflections, a checker floor, and a sky gradient, all crammed into a
characters of obfuscated C++ small enough to print on the back of a single C++ source file small enough to print on the back of a business
business card. card.
> **`card.cc` is exactly 1337 bytes.** Yes, **leet**. Verify it yourself:
>
> ```sh
> $ wc -c card.cc
> 1337 card.cc
> ```
>
> That is not a happy accident — Kensler golfed the source until it hit
> the magic number. Every typedef (`i` for `int`, `f` for `float`),
> every operator-overload trick on `struct v`, and every absent space
> exists to land on **1337**.
The original code is preserved verbatim as [`card.cc`](card.cc). A The original code is preserved verbatim as [`card.cc`](card.cc). A
de-obfuscated, heavily-annotated rewrite lives in de-obfuscated, heavily-annotated rewrite lives in