On May 6, 2013, at 10:20 PM, John C. Welch wrote:
John, you're right. This is not HARDER.
It's simply more efficient while still being visually terribly easy to grasp.
And it's 5 characters, not 4.
OH MY GOD! FIVE MORE CHARACTERS!
I will now burn my compiler. HOW CAN I LIVE WITH THAT INEFFICIENCY.
we should all go back to binary. That's the ultimate in efficiency. one or zero.
Exactly. When you have typed hundreds of thousands of lines of code, it's simply a damn waste.
If you type 50 characters per line, you've wasted 10% of your keystrokes on every line.
You've wasted 10% of your time.
All for something that is just just as easily understandable as the short form - which saves 10% of your effort.
I don't know what problems you have with understanding the complexities of x = 1, but I value my time, and I don't want to waste it being needlessly verbose, when the shorter form is just as easily understandable to anyone who has taken and passed grade school math.