> in English, words like “twelve” or “eleven” don’t give many clues as to the structure of the number itself... Contrast this with Mandarin Chinese, where the r

> in English, words like “twelve” or “eleven” don’t give many clues as to the structure of the number itself... Contrast this with Mandarin Chinese, where the relationship between the tens and the units is very clear. Here, 92 is written jiǔ shí èr, which translates as “nine ten two”... Psychologists call systems like these “transparent”, where there is an obvious and consistent link between numbers and their names. Relatedly, I've been thinking a lot lately about programming style conventions, and how some people prefer very explicit code while others prefer implicit. For example, something as "simple" as leaving out the return keyword where it can be omitted at the end of a function versus leaving it in. The latter can be called "transparent", whereas the former requires a little deeper knowledge of the system.