I agree with you alot but not always. This is one of the not always. I
can express a thought in Cherokee with 7 words that will take many
paragraphs to say in English if you really want to translate the meaning and
intention of the original. When Italians are confronted with translations
of Italian poetry into English they always demean it. But they rarely
do the translation themselves because it takes so many words that they feel
incompetant. Translation from one mind to another through the deaf and
dumb medium of writing is so incomplete that Physicists like David Bohm
wanted to replace all European languages with a constructed language built
upon verbs rather than the objects of all European grammar. I spoke on
Wednesday with a Cantonese Doctor who pointed out that the four toned words
of a Cantonese speaker took many words if it was to be used in alphabetic
writing. So it seems to me that the programmers are operating from a very
simple place. If it were not so then they would already have a decent
universal translator but writing is just too arbitrary to work as a serious
translator of any but the simplest of ideas.
Let me propose an experiment. Take any seven word sentence. Write it
down and underneathe each word write one word that can be used as a
substitute for the original. I use the poetic formula of three denotative
meanings and four connotative meanings for each word. Then simply jumble
the numbers and mix the meanings creating other possibilities for the
meaning of the original sentence. e.g. word 1 Meaning 2; w 2 m4; w 3 m 6; w
4 m 7; w 5 m 2; w 6 m 1; w 7 m 2 as one possible sequence. You will find
that there are cliche' meanings that are the common but the door to
perception lies in getting beyond that and although many will make no sense
at all at first, they will hook in the brain and offer new ways of thinking
that can be called creative in the real sense.
So Chris. Programmers are operating in very simple structures. Our
thought is not, even when it is banal.
Regards
REH
----- Original Message -----
From: "Christoph Reuss" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 10:25 AM
Subject: Re: Why so long?
> 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. Brevity is an art and an expensive asset, especially in
> technical writing. Brief writing takes more time for the writer, but less
> time for the (sophisticated) readers, so the overall time consumption is
> reduced by it. (In other words: too long writing is a sign of contempt
> for one's readers.) It's too easy to "talk much but say little", to
babble
> for pages without concise content and structure (as lawyers are famous
> for doing). I'm not saying that Keith does this -- of course, complex
> issues (especially if illustrated with examples) require some length
> to be not oversimplified --, I just wanted to point out that the above
> statement is generally not true. The key is to avoid redundancies. ;-)
>
> Chris
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
> "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler." -- Albert Einstein
>
>
