
Succinctness is Power (2002) - breck
http://www.paulgraham.com/power.html
======
kristianp
He also talks about programming from the bottom up, that leads to succinctness
as well.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/progbot.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/progbot.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/lwba.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/lwba.html)

------
mabynogy
A recent related topic on LtU: [http://lambda-the-
ultimate.org/node/5402](http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/5402)

Stroustrup's Rule:

\- For new features, people insist on LOUD explicit syntax.

\- For established features, people want terse notation.

~~~
AstralStorm
Up to a point. There is a degree of terseness that does not help anymore, just
increases number of mistakes.

See Perl for example and sigil type marking that is a historical artefact of
ancient 8-bit computer parsers.

Conciseness is not the same as terseness. Fewer syntax elements used to
express as opposed to shorter syntax.

Succintness is another thing, also meaning lack of ambiguity. For example many
dynamically typed languages are concise but not succinct. (You have to rely on
names of things to know what they are and mean and assume no mistakes.)

------
BatFastard
>My hypothesis is that succinctness is power, or is close enough that except
in pathological examples you can treat them as identical.

This word has two meaning, which in some circumstances can have opposite
effects.

>succinct - briefly and clearly expressed.

While succinctness is powerful. From a coding standpoint it can be a bear to
maintain. I would much rather have clear verbose code than succinct code. I
have had this problem especially with brilliant developers. They have a
tendency to not stick around to maintain their code, and if it takes 10 times
to expand it. Give me clear but verbose any day.

I strive to make the intentions behind what I code clear to others.

~~~
AstralStorm
This has two sides. Either the programmer is writing verbose code because
they're doing unnecessary work (in algorithm and in coding) or they really
know what they're doing.

Simular with succinct code, either you're bashing code using libraries and
syntax you don't understand, or you're writing genius code but forgot to
document it.

Always remember you're the last person to judge clarity of your own code.

~~~
BatFastard
I think doing the work to make your code self documenting is required. Some
might consider that unneeded, but after after looking back at my own code
years later, what was blatantly clear at the time, it no longer obvious years
later.

And I would say you are the FIRST person to judge the clarity of your code.
Who knows who the last person will be...

