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Re: OT: Auxlangs (was Re: "Esperanto V.2")

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Monday, March 27, 2006, 14:36
Mark J. Reed wrote:

>On 3/27/06, taliesin the storyteller <taliesin-conlang@...> wrote: > > >>>Whereas the corresponding program in Perl - the poster child for >>>illegibility - is a single line that says 'print "Hello, world!\n";'. >>>The only things you have to explain are the \n and maybe the >>>semicolon. >>> >>> >>Can't help myself - in Python that would be 'print "Hello, world!"', not >>even needing to explain a semicolon or a line shift :) >> >> > >Yes,yes, but Python is claimed by its supporters to be highly legible. >I deliberately chose Perl because of its reputation for illegibility. >(Perl6, btw, will also have "say", which will automatically append the >newline, as well as "print", which will continue not to.) > >
You're right, I suppose. I guess I meant ultra-conciseness, APL-style. And, yes, for simple things like 'Hello, world', it's more readable, but for more complicated things, while it is perhaps easier/quicker to write, it is significantly harder to read. I didn't mean 'Conciseness is always bad', but that 'making things too concise leads to issues with legibility, or, with human languages, increases the potential for mishearing'.

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>