The more meaning you pack into a message, the harder the message is to unpack. So there's this inherent tradeoff between "easy to process" and "expressive" --

The more meaning you pack into a message, the harder the message is to unpack. So there's this inherent tradeoff between "easy to process" and "expressive" -- and I imagine deciding which side you want to lean toward depends on the context. Check this out for a practical example: https://www.practicingruby.com/articles/information-anatomy https://www.practicingruby.com/articles/information-anatomy (not a Ruby article, but instead about essential structure of messages, loosely inspired by ideas in Gödel, Escher, Bach)