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Noble Beast is kinda crumby.

What’s the Strunk quote? “Vigorous writing is concise…”

Couldn’t agree more.

@Fred: it’s definitely not as good as Armchair Apocrypha, but it grows on you after a while.

I am paraphrasing here but Mark Twain once excused himself after composing a letter to someone that turned lengthy. He apologized saying that he didn’t have enough time to write a short one.

Heh, there are many quotes from smart writers along the lines of the Mark Twain one, I’m sure Voltaire probably wrote the same at some point.

For a software Engineer’s version, I give you C. A. R. Hoare:

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

The first method is far more difficult. It demands the same skill, devotion, insight, and even inspiration as the discovery of the simple physical laws which underlie the complex phenomena of nature.

I love the quote, it should be taught to every CS undergrad in their first lecture. I’ve had to deal with so much hideously complex code over the years, sigh.

Paul

Paul, this is an awesome quote. And I agree this should be taught. At lest as a value, so no one would say:
“Ha! I’m better, I have build a more complicated something than yours.”
You know what I mean.

Hemingway aimed to write 500 words per day. Consider that’s a day spent crafting a little over 3 tweets on twitter.

Great quote. But I feel like some of the other commenters are missing the point.

He didn’t say he was writing less. He said he was writing more simply. Simple might mean less, but it doesn’t have to.

And it also is usually more work (or, at least, harder word).

@Keith: Hemingway was a bit more ambitious than that—a tweet is 140 characters, not words. He could have probably written at least 20 tweets per day, given an average English word length of 5 characters (plus spaces).

Got tickets to see our friend Mr. Bird on Sunday night in Philly. :) Good timing!

Caught Andrew Bird at a show in Asheville a while back—it was absolutely great.

well, I saw his tour-opener, where he debuted the new material for the album LIVE , playing each piece BY HIMSELF .

It did not seem “really” simple at all, but was a very complex mashup of very simple hooks and sounds.

easily the most talented musician I’ve ever seen.