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In general, I'd agree with you -- I prefer spelling things out explicitly instead of using terse abbreviations. However, really common & fundamental math operat

In general, I'd agree with you -- I prefer spelling things out explicitly instead of using terse abbreviations. However, really common & fundamental math operations benefit from some shorthand. For instance, 'y = ax + b' is way easier to read than: let multiplied = a.wrapping_mul(x); let y = multiplied.wrapping_add(b); The "terse" equation I can instantly recognize as a linear function, while I'd have to stare at the more verbose version it for a while to figure out what it does. In my opinion, bitwise operators work the same way: if you're working in a domain where you have to write thousands of simple bitwise operations, a bit of shorthand can make the code much more expressive.

kennywinker 5y ago
This is a good point. Programming and math are different systems. `y=ax+b` doesn’t need clarification in math because wrapping, overflowing or saturating are not concepts that apply. My pragmatic solution would be a comment pointing out the math-formula, with the code represented in the explicit+verbose way. But i can imagine language constructs that allow the simpler expression without compromising on clarity. E.g. some kind of math scope that forces you to define which operators you’re using. fn calc_linear() -> int { math(x) -> y { let * = saturating_mul let + = wrapping_add y = a*x+b } return y } There’s clearly a war between explicit and verbose going on here. Not sure the solution, but I firmly believe we can do better than C on this one.