| > certainly for me, it is not true in say Python or C# etc where I find less code can be significantly more difficult to read. Is it possible this is only a reflection of your experiences and not reality? Surely when you say this, some example sprung to your mind, but where is the proof? > it's just as important to know why some code does what it does, so splitting up operations, using more verbose with variable names etc can make the code significantly more self-documenting. I doubt the importance. Quite seriously. When I want to know why the business asked for it, I ask them; There's probably a ticket or a email someplace. But I have zero interest in puzzling about what the programmer was trying to do[1], and let me tell you why: I think it is very easy for our minds to be tricked into thinking we read something when we actually didn't. If you've never seen Paris in the the spring, you might not know what I mean, but perhaps you've seen some close-up magic, and maybe you've even been fooled before. I think the only things I need to concern myself with are what the program actually does, and how that differs from what the business wants. I have on more than one occasion gotten off a long-haul flight just to read someone's code out loud to them over their shoulder. I'm not kidding. The bug is there. I absolutely do not care one bit what the comment says above there, or what you think that library function should do; the code doesn't do what the comment says, it does what the computer says! The computer doesn't know the difference between a context or a ctx (or a c). Of course we do, and so when we see it, we assume we know what it is, instead of checking. And when we get it wrong? Bang, another bug, and I'm having airplane gin for supper. [1] I am being somewhat dramatic here. I'm quite interested in watching people use my libraries so I can understand the way that I help, and I'm quite interested in looking out for training or tooling opportunities, so if people keep making the same mistake, it's probably worth some investment. I mean for the purposes of making changes the business wants. |
For terseness, I think it's pretty easy to show that k is a lot more terse than say Pascal in various quantitative ways.
Readability quite subjective though. I'm not saying k is universally less readable. But my experiences tell me that for me it might be. Hence why I was looking for alternatives that might fit me better.
> I think the only things I need to concern myself with are what the program actually does, and how that differs from what the business wants.
This is exactly what I was trying to get at. For me, self-documenting code helps with this, as I find it easier to find discrepancies or where I need to focus my attention when extending code.
Anyway, got to spend a bit more time on the two tutorials posted here, which really helped, so will try to take a stab at k during summer break.