One thing hackers like is brevity. Hackers are lazy, in the same way that mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything extraneous. It would not be far from the truth to say that a hacker about to write a program decides what language to use, at least subconsciously, based on the total number of characters he’ll have to type. If this isn’t precisely how hackers think, a language designer would do well to act as if it were.
It is a mistake to try to baby the user with long-winded expressions that are meant to resemble English. Cobol is notorious for this flaw. A hacker would consider being asked to write
add x to y giving z
instead of
z = x+y
as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God.
| Author | Paul Graham |
| Work | Being Popular |