Pobol Y Cwm
Oct. 17th, 2003 01:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirezYour posts these days are mostly Welsh, but I still read them for the bits in between.
It's about information density.
Maybe I'm approaching the English language (or indeed any other human-interactive medium) the same way I approach(ed) C. If you start thinking in terms of context-dependency and macro-expansion... No, I think I'm too woolly-headed today to explore it properly. Perhaps someone else has a better idea?
What I tend to think is that the best writing works on your brain the same way a self-expanding archive or a viral payload might work on a computer. Just a few lines of innocent-seeming words unwrap into something conceptually far larger that keeps unfolding along lines that traverse dimensions that make your eyes hurt when you try to look at them.
It's about information density.
Maybe I'm approaching the English language (or indeed any other human-interactive medium) the same way I approach(ed) C. If you start thinking in terms of context-dependency and macro-expansion... No, I think I'm too woolly-headed today to explore it properly. Perhaps someone else has a better idea?
What I tend to think is that the best writing works on your brain the same way a self-expanding archive or a viral payload might work on a computer. Just a few lines of innocent-seeming words unwrap into something conceptually far larger that keeps unfolding along lines that traverse dimensions that make your eyes hurt when you try to look at them.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 06:59 am (UTC)Density is work, but it's always worthwhile.
"Omit needless words." - Strunk and White
no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 08:58 am (UTC)"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to remove." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
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Date: 2003-10-17 12:09 pm (UTC)