Terse Programming Languages
After posting about the terseness of Python vs Java (and C and Cobol) I was reminded that new versions of Cobol aren’t as verbose. In fact you can even write “Hello World” in one line of code. This makes Java, and even C, more verbose than Cobol.
Sure, “HelloWorld” isn’t really a good indicator of terseness anyway, and it’s really meant as a curiosity and for poking fun. Though I won’t use it to make fun of Cobol again, since it’s no longer funny :)
The “Shortest Wiki Contest” is not a bad way to get a feel for terseness. Ward Cunningham had mentioned the contest at EclipseCon, though he suggested the winner was “5 lines of Python”. I couldn’t find that solution, the winner seems to be a 4 line Perl script. Nice. Maybe Ward meant “the shortest solution that can still be read by a human”.
But the problem with the contest is that most solutions are implemented with the usual suspects: Perl, Ruby and Python and you can’t really tell how others fare. Though the Java/JSP version can be found here.
As for me, I don’t cease to be impressed by how terse Python is when compared to Java and C.