What word should I use to describe a really elegant API (which requires fewer lines of code to be written vs. the competitors) in the README?
#oss #opensource #marketing
@postmodern I think we, as software engineers, should be very careful to use terms like "simple", "easy", and "clean" very carefully, in much the way that words like "accurate" and "precise" have very specific definitions in scientific circles. I think Rich Hickey's definitions are a good starting place, which is why in your case I think adjectives like "terse" or "concise", or yes even "succinct", are better.
@postmodern Yeah, I know. That's what it always comes down to in this industry. Makes me a little sad sometimes.
@rlamacraft FWIW, I tried to get the meme going about calling things 'minimal', as in minimalism, instead of 'simple'. Often times 'simple' is used to describe small or minimal things.
@postmodern How I would describe "simple" in a computational sense is a concept that is constructed of a small number of other ideas. In my mind, "minimal" would be the something with an absolute minimum number of component concepts. So, something like this would be lambda calculus or SK combinators which are not easy, nor are any algorithm written in them terse, but they are minimal in their complexity. Something could be both terse and simple, but they're two orthogonal properties.
@rlamacraft oh of course, but this is marketing we are talking about. The goal is to win, not to be correct. Sometimes correct language takes a backseat to success.