Announcing: the Scandroid

It's a program that scans iambic pentameters. It does a good enough job that its mistakes are interesting. It's available for Mac (OS 10.3 only) and Windows: http://cherry.conncoll.edu/cohar/COH%20programs%20page.htm. The Manual is also available there as a separately downloadable PDF file (it's included in the Mac and Win downloads too).

This is version 0.2a. Version 1.0 is in the works, and it offers important additions and improvements. Most important, it will handle other meters, anapestic ones in particular. Figuring out how to decide — how we decide — whether a line is anapestic or iambic is difficult enough to constitute a reason for writing the program. I'm collecting other questions that the program raises. If anyone finds others, and of course if anyone finds bugs, I'd be very glad to hear.

The program is published under a GNU Public License. The source code (in Python) is available on the same site as the program itself.