I have seen many people around complaining about verbosity in programming languages. I find that, within some bounds, the more verbose a programming language is, the better it is to understand. I think that verbosity also reinforces writing clearer APIs for that particular language.The only disadvantage I can think of is that it makes you type more, but I mean, most people use IDEs which do all the work for you.So, What are the possible downsides to a verbose programming language?
Why is verbosity bad for a programming language?
programming languages
The goal is quick comprehensionVerbose means uses too many words. The question is what too many is.Good code should be easy to comprehend at a glance. This is easier if most of the characters directly serve the purpose of the code.Signal vs NoiseIf a language is verbose, more of your code is noise. Compare Java's Hello World:class HelloWorldApp {    public static void main(String[] args) {        System.out.println(Hello World!);    }}... with Ruby's:print Hello World!Noise wastes mental energy.Cryptic vs ClearOn the other hand, excessive terseness in a language also costs mental energy. Compare these two examples from Common Lisp:(car '(1 2 3))   # 3 characters whose meaning must be memorized# vs(first '(1 2 3)) # 5 characters whose meaning is obvious