Comment by 0xDEEPFAC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 0xDEEPFAC | Hacker News Reader

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> overloaded operators or keywords in different contexts (C++, Perl)

Woa there, ever look at vector math libraries in C - horribly unreadable and ugly.

> too much verbosity

Verbosity describes a programs behavior without implied knowledge thus a reader of some code will understand exactly what is meant. I disagree that the definition of readability is all about how quickly you can skim source code - and ew too many words.

> And almost everybody and their grandma dislike their syntax (especially Ada's), and would prefer something less verbose.

Well, they were objectively designed to readability based on studies of other languages (at least Ada). And hey, I like it but I guess I am biased : P

>Verbosity describes a programs behavior without implied knowledge thus a reader of some code will understand exactly what is meant.

Readability is not just about "understanding what is meant if you take the time". It's also about each piece of code being easy to scan and understand to find what you need. Devs have to scan whole projects to find what happens where, and there's a balance between cryptic very succinct statements and getting lost in expanded verbosity.

Verbosity hurts that by making less code fit on your screen, the code having more stuff that's needed to convey the meaning, etc. You get lost in the extra details, and have more baggage to keep in mind.

It's the difference between saying, e.g.: "Yeah", and "I am indeed craving something savory with lots of melted curdled milk and processed pork cuts, and I believe that we can immediately proceed with the thing that we were just now discussing to do".

Which is one is the more "readable" answer to "Wanna go for a pizza?".

Very well said. This is very much what I am after. Some common idioms in Rust or C++ just feel unnecessarily verbose to me (e.g., `<exp>.unwrap().borrow_mut()`), and I am looking for straightforward ways, often borrowed from other languages, to express the same intent more succinctly and clearly.

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