3 ms·

> if you're writing java, you'll be putting out a lot more than that due to how stupidly verbose it is Being "verbose" means that each letter you type communic

by jefftk 7y ago

> if you're writing java, you'll be putting out a lot more than that due to how stupidly verbose it is Being "verbose" means that each letter you type communicates fewer bits of information. If the bottleneck is putting ideas together then you would expect someone writing in a more verbose language to type more letters per minute but still take a similar amount of time to communicate the idea. In practice most Java programmers are using IDEs with good auto-completion, though, so aren't actually needing to type as many letters as you'd think.

dual_basis 7y ago
What might be more relevant, however, is the effect of verbosity on comprehension. Syntax highlighting can help, and humans will likely naturally perform input compression (chunking), but this must be learned.
the_af 7y ago
Like the sibling comment mentioned, it seems verbosity hinders reading comprehension rather than writing. Many IDEs understand this and hide some of the boilerplate. This raises the question: if the IDE autocompletes the boilerplate for you, and also hides it, why is it needed in the first place?
- usrusr 7y ago
  In an autocomplete + simplify situation you usually type a little more than the simplified version before autocompleting and then allow the hiding to apply a lossy simplification. E.g. when the simplification is substituting a localization ID with the English text there might be multiple IDs mapped to identical texts and then the difference between the IDs is lost in the simplified representation. Differences which might be important, for example if the IDs are for different semantic concepts that map to separate texts in other languages. These simplifications are valuable because they are allowed to be "leaky", they can make the easy case even more easy by leaving the tough ones to the underlying raw, unsimplified truth.
- liability 7y ago
  Consider the verbosity of XML compared to s-expressions. <html>...</html> vs (html ...) The latter can trivially be used to output the former. The conclusion is obvious; some of these formats are objectively more verbose that others while having equivalent expressive power.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Interestingly, depending on the context I find one or the other to be more readable. XML is great when you're got a lot of content, because it provides additional context of where you are in the closing tag, but it's not as great when you don't have a lot of data since the closing tag is just visual clutter.

by jefftk 7y ago

dual_basis 7y ago

What might be more relevant, however, is the effect of verbosity on comprehension. Syntax highlighting can help, and humans will likely naturally perform input compression (chunking), but this must be learned.

the_af 7y ago

Like the sibling comment mentioned, it seems verbosity hinders reading comprehension rather than writing. Many IDEs understand this and hide some of the boilerplate. This raises the question: if the IDE autocompletes the boilerplate for you, and also hides it, why is it needed in the first place?

usrusr 7y ago
In an autocomplete + simplify situation you usually type a little more than the simplified version before autocompleting and then allow the hiding to apply a lossy simplification. E.g. when the simplification is substituting a localization ID with the English text there might be multiple IDs mapped to identical texts and then the difference between the IDs is lost in the simplified representation. Differences which might be important, for example if the IDs are for different semantic concepts that map to separate texts in other languages. These simplifications are valuable because they are allowed to be "leaky", they can make the easy case even more easy by leaving the tough ones to the underlying raw, unsimplified truth.
liability 7y ago
Consider the verbosity of XML compared to s-expressions. <html>...</html> vs (html ...) The latter can trivially be used to output the former. The conclusion is obvious; some of these formats are objectively more verbose that others while having equivalent expressive power.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Interestingly, depending on the context I find one or the other to be more readable. XML is great when you're got a lot of content, because it provides additional context of where you are in the closing tag, but it's not as great when you don't have a lot of data since the closing tag is just visual clutter.