3 ms·
> A 1 page proof is generally easier to read than a 100 page proof, no? No. You can see the reason from information-theoretic aspect: highly compressed data is
by lifthrasiir 5y ago
> A 1 page proof is generally easier to read than a 100 page proof, no?
No. You can see the reason from information-theoretic aspect: highly compressed data is essentially indistinguishable from random data. Such data can only be recovered by a huge amount of prior information (in this case a decompressor) and any chance to recover it without that information is slim. Most human-readable data (not just code, but general language and so on) is highly redundant for this reason.
- rak1507 5y agoNo one's suggesting to compress code. I was just saying in general, shorter things tend to be clearer and easier to read. (as long as it's not overly 'golfed' or obfuscated)
- lifthrasiir 5y ago> as long as it's not overly 'golfed' or obfuscated This restriction is very subjective. For example APL and its descendants can be thought as golfed by default (indeed they tend to be far shorter in competitive golfing, see for example [1]). I'm not saying that they are not necessarily unusable! I just want to point out that being shorter doesn't generally mean much without further context. [1] https://code.golf/rankings/langs/all/bytes https://code.golf/rankings/langs/all/bytes
- rak1507 5y agoThey can definitely be much shorter than other languages in golfing, no doubt about that. I wouldn't say they're golfed by default though really.