Christoph Reuss wrote:
>
> Keith Hudson wrote:
> >
> > > Why do you write so much?
> >
> > 'Cos it's too easy to write short messages.
>
> Is it? As in programming, it is *more* difficult to express the same thing
> with less words.
[snip]
> The key is to avoid redundancies. ;-)
One thing that can help is "newspaper style": Order paragraphs in
order of importance (first things first), and make the first
sentence of each paragraph summarize the whole paragraph (so
the text "outlines" itself and the reader can decide where they
*want* to delve deeper).
Less is often more, but not always.
Mies van der Rohe has
been described as a connoisseur of "the luxury of materials"
(contrast with: applied ornament, as in Victoriana and
postmodernism's "decorated shed" style).
There are many ways in which there can be "more to the
surface than meets the eye" (--Aaron Beck).
--
Speaking of *programming*, real succinctness is not popular.
I, for one, like APL (The Chorus sings: "Boo!"). Back in
the days of Structured Programming, I too opposed GOTOs --
but I also opposed "IF... THEN... ELSE..." and
"DO... WHILE..." constructs (The Chorus laments: "But then
how can you do *anything*?").
Now, in the New World of Object Oriented Programming
Systems (OOPS), I am coming to appreciate even more than in past
how similar programming is to Roman Catholic theology /
theodicy / cosmography / ecclesiasticy.... Subclassing is all too similar
to the heavenly hierarchy (seraphims, principalities,
dominations, angels, archangels, et al.), and the number
of seemingly fortuitously aggregated methods that can
go to make up an Application Programming Interface (API)
would make my prep school teachers drool at the
possibilities of testing to see if I'd really read
and memorized every word in the book. Dickens had
nothing on Microsoft! (I think both are paid by the word-count.)
I have nominated Ariadne as the patron saint of
object-oriented programmers! If I tag every line of
code I write and every line of code I find that just
might help me figure out a problem, then I have some
hope of finding it again (Ariadne's thread).
So maybe it's not so much like the Catholic Church after all, but rather
more like polytheism, with a thoroughly adventitious proliferating
catch-all of gods and goddesses and mutants. But then Protestants
thought Catholicism was too full of demi-gods, saints and such.
While, as individuals, each of us may hope for peace
so we can life (ars longa vita brevis), what
"we" need Darwineanly is a good global catastrophe to simplify
things, like when that meteor 65 million years ago
wiped out the hypertrophied dinosaurs (which some scientists
think were on the way to evolving reptilian hominids!)
and left small birds and rodents -- and, of course,
bugs.
Things could be shorter if people were fewer.
+\brad mccormick
--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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