My impression is that human languages are more expressive - There is more than one way to do it. # For a bank, if ($authorised) { allow_entry(); }

My impression is that human languages are more expressive - There is more than one way to do it. # For a bank, if ($authorised) { allow_entry(); } # vs. a shop: allow_entry() unless $person->is_smelly(); The language lends itself to how you may normally say it in English, emphasizing the common case. That isn't to say all the syntactic noise is justified, but I guess one's noise is other's attempt at being more expressive.