No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.
Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness
within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.
Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and
doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone
of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
		-- Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"

One thing hackers like is brevity. Hackers are lazy, in the same way that
mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything
extraneous. It would not be far from the truth to say that a hacker about to
write a program decides what language to use, at least subconsciously, based
on the total number of characters he'll have to type. If this isn't precisely
how hackers think, a language designer would do well to act as if it were.

It is a mistake to try to baby the user with long-winded expressions that are
meant to resemble English. Cobol is notorious for this flaw. A hacker would
consider being asked to write

add x to y giving z

instead of

z = x+y

as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God.

    -- Paul Graham
    -- Being Popular ( http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html )