I think I found the answer you mean! https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3637668/why-are-scriptin... — the topic matches, there's a table comparing syntax (though I wouldn't call it huge), and it includes the idea of scaling up to large programs vs scaling down to 10 character programs.

(The question was deleted in July 2014 and undeleted in December 2020: https://stackoverflow.com/posts/3637668/revisions , so right now anyone can see it. BTW with ≥10000 reputation one can see deleted posts, per https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges and https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/moderator-tools — e.g., as you mentioned you have ~16k points, try the much-mirrored "programmer joke" deleted question (linked from e.g. https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/76584).)