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Re:Show HN: Bel by Liron on Saturday October 12, 2019 @07:00PM (#21236961)
Ya, here's why I think "make your programs shorter" is a good criterion.

If a language compresses conceivably-desirable programs to a smaller AST size, then for all N, a higher fraction of size-N ASTs (compared to other languages) represent conceivably-desirable programs.

So "make your programs shorter" also implies "make bad behaviors impossible or extra-verbose to write". For example, failing to free your memory is bad code, and it's impossible(ish) to write in managed-memory languages.

Re:Show HN: Bel by LrnByTeach on Sunday October 13, 2019 @04:30PM (#21242766)
> So "make your programs shorter" also implies "make bad behaviors impossible or extra-verbose to write".

It reminds me "The Zen of Python" "There should be one — and preferably only one — obvious way to do it"

https://jeffknupp.com/blog/2018/10/11/write-better-python-fu...

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-be-pythonic-and-why-yo...

Re:Show HN: Bel by jstimpfle on Sunday October 13, 2019 @07:28AM (#21239822)
Make your programs as short as possible, but no shorter. Failing to free your memory makes for a shorter program. Using GC makes for a shorter program, but there is a whole class of problems that just can't be solved with GC.
Re:Show HN: Bel by badatshipping on Sunday October 13, 2019 @12:42PM (#21241314)
I think deciding to not free your memory or use GC (instead of not) would count as having a different program.