Comments on: The Verbosity Difference http://naml.us/blog/2009/08/verbosity-difference Geoffrey Irving Sun, 05 Sep 2010 05:19:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Geoffrey Irving http://naml.us/blog/2009/08/verbosity-difference#comment-147 Geoffrey Irving Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:12:35 +0000 http://naml.us/blog/?p=301#comment-147 <p>Yes, the coder is trading off code maintainability and learnability for time-to-market, but that's no excuse for a language which turns around and makes the coder stupider in response. The problem is that once you've merged conceptually unrelated ideas into one, you really do start to think about those ideas as if they are the same, and that really does make you stupider (this happens to me all the time, so substitute "you" for "we" if you like). That doesn't mean you were stupid to make that choice in the first place, which is exactly why I'm blaming it on the language rather than the programmer.</p> <p>Also, it's interesting that you left out <em>quality</em> in your list of trade-offs. It doesn't help to get code out the door really fast if the code is bad, and having the language trick you into picking the wrong abstractions will definitely lower quality.</p> Yes, the coder is trading off code maintainability and learnability for time-to-market, but that’s no excuse for a language which turns around and makes the coder stupider in response. The problem is that once you’ve merged conceptually unrelated ideas into one, you really do start to think about those ideas as if they are the same, and that really does make you stupider (this happens to me all the time, so substitute “you” for “we” if you like). That doesn’t mean you were stupid to make that choice in the first place, which is exactly why I’m blaming it on the language rather than the programmer.

Also, it’s interesting that you left out quality in your list of trade-offs. It doesn’t help to get code out the door really fast if the code is bad, and having the language trick you into picking the wrong abstractions will definitely lower quality.

]]> By: bustos http://naml.us/blog/2009/08/verbosity-difference#comment-145 bustos Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:29:58 +0000 http://naml.us/blog/?p=301#comment-145 <p>Stupid is such a harsh term. Do you think it would be more precise to say that the coder is trading off code maintainability and learnability for time-to-market?</p> <p>I think I make such tradeoffs in my coding, and it makes me uneasy because I know I don't have tools which allow me to easily go back and undo them later. Maybe I should make a point of incorporating to-do lists into file comments.</p> Stupid is such a harsh term. Do you think it would be more precise to say that the coder is trading off code maintainability and learnability for time-to-market?

I think I make such tradeoffs in my coding, and it makes me uneasy because I know I don’t have tools which allow me to easily go back and undo them later. Maybe I should make a point of incorporating to-do lists into file comments.

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