I do think there is a middle ground. Look at Bukowski as a good example of effective terseness.
On one hand, you can indeed rely on the precision of a large and unequivocal vocabulary, removing all doubt as to your intentions.
On the other hand, you can also rely on context and find beauty in conveying advanced meaning within a simpler interface. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".
There is a creative art to compressing meaning. As evidenced by the response to your first post, things can actually get lost in translation once you stray from the common vernacular in an attempt at precision. The more you can say with less, the more effective each word becomes.
With practice, you can communicate quite profound thoughts in a form that even the most uneducated among us can understand. Know Your Audience. We may be on Hacker News, but we are also on the Web. People encounter and digest a massive amount of text every day. Making them work a little less in order to understand you can be beneficial for everyone.
I do think there is a middle ground. Look at Bukowski as a good example of effective terseness.
On one hand, you can indeed rely on the precision of a large and unequivocal vocabulary, removing all doubt as to your intentions.
On the other hand, you can also rely on context and find beauty in conveying advanced meaning within a simpler interface. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says, "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".
There is a creative art to compressing meaning. As evidenced by the response to your first post, things can actually get lost in translation once you stray from the common vernacular in an attempt at precision. The more you can say with less, the more effective each word becomes.
With practice, you can communicate quite profound thoughts in a form that even the most uneducated among us can understand. Know Your Audience. We may be on Hacker News, but we are also on the Web. People encounter and digest a massive amount of text every day. Making them work a little less in order to understand you can be beneficial for everyone.