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Re: How do you define "elegant"?

by spiritway (Vicar)
on Aug 22, 2006 at 02:46 UTC ( #568740=note: print w/ replies, xml ) Need Help??

in reply to How do you define "elegant"?

Elegance is one of those elusive words and ideals that means different things to different people. To me, for instance, "elegance" means having a certain beauty; code that is effective, efficient, and somehow beyond that - that does something in a beautiful way (what's beauty?). There seems to be also a sense of the unexpected, as well. Some things are more or less obvious - you can anticipate the next step, see where you can drop some unneeded stuff; that's just workmanship (in my opinion). It's the difference between painting some water lilies, and Monet's Water Lilies. To me it's that feeling I sometimes get of "Yesss!" - just a sense of the rightness of the expression. Elegance seems to be like the US Supreme Court's definition of pornography. "Darned if I can define it, but I know it when I see it".

When it comes to Perl, I personally think many of the idioms and one-liners are sheer artwork - and many are (to my view) quite elegant.

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