I think that just as important as "compactness" is the issue of "density": the ratio of the "conceptual weight"of the computation to the size of the code expressing it.
if a computation is inherently complicated and I manage to squeeze it into a few lines (typically accomplished via an intense cognitive effort) the resulting code is usually hard to understand/maintain/debug because you need to be acquainted with all sorts of little truths and insights which are not obvious for the casual reader. This is what I call a high density code. Given that Clojure is a very powerful language, I often find my self in a situation where I mange to write highly dense code, sometimes at the expense of readability. In such cases I think that the use of explaining variables, and simplified-but- somewhat-longer expressions is desirable. OTOH, if the code is inherently simple (e.g.: a chain of straight- forward transformations on a collection) I think that using Clojure's power to reduce the line count by a factor of more than 5 (compared to, say, Java), is highly beneficial. The predicament is that there's no objective way to measure "conceptual weight" nor "density" so this issue is largely a personal judgment call. Just my 2c. -- Itay Maman http://javadots.blogspot.com --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
