# 2021-09-18
Being articulate and precise is very important. Usually this is related to speech or writing. But there is no reason to not expand this statement to other domain. Be concise in your words and actions, in your code and your drawing. Say, write, draw and program exactly what's necessary, in the most compact and efficient way possible. Your ability to align action with intent is what separates failure from triumph. This - and luck, but you can't exactly control your fortune, so focusing on former makes more sense.
@academicalnerd isn't articulate almost an antonym of concise, compact and efficient? like you don't get to skip any syllables if you wish to be articulate, no matter how derivative they are.
You are right, the concept is the same. I like the word "articulate", because it combines all the good stuff and is, more importantly, quantitative. Something may be more or less concise, and while there is no number attached to this, the subjective metric is still useful.
@academicalnerd did you read antonym as synonym? stop agreeing we're supposed to fight now grrrrrr
I did :D
Articulate is, in my understanding, is synonim to precise. Derivative syllables contribute to sense and, more importantly, to impression. None of the syllables are unnecessary because others expect to hear them.
I can agree with verbosity, indeed. But can one call something redundant if it works?
Anyhow, that's just the approach difference.
@academicalnerd yes, it has got to work to be redundant. You have to do the work and some more, that's pretty much what it means.
I'm afraid I'll have to maintain that you are not good words...
@academicalnerd in my mind there is certain verbosity and redundancy in being articulate. I didn't object to precise, only to concise, compact and efficient. To be precise and clear to everyone you have to pronounce more than is necessary for one, never less.
Since you mentioned code, a few days ago someone here was praising the power and efficiency of regular expressions, the metric being complexity per character I presume. Others rejoice at the sight of high level functional abstractions expressed in few esoteric lines of haskell, not mention that APL fanboys exist.
There a conflict here that should be easy to recognize, efficiency in a specific domain against the general clarity of expression. Then again what I would find articulate and expressive most people would probably deem disgustingly verbose.