knuth:
-> this definition of elegance is between the machine and programmer
use of materials should be the barest and cleverest -> too much emphasis on one criteria leads to clunkiness/overcomplication
Gregory Chaitin’s formulation of program- size defi nition of complexity: A measure of the complexity of an an-swer to a question is the size of the smallest program required to compute it. The resulting drive to terse programs produces a defi nition of elegance being found in a program “with the property that no program written in the same programming language that produces the same output is smaller than it is.” -> but also some programs gets way too complicated, and so the elegant solution seems further and further away at each step
if elegance cannot be math formula, then, then it relies on skill
Finding a way of aligning one’s capacities and powers in a way that arcs through the interlocking sets of constraints and criteria, the material qualities of software, and the context in which it is forged and exists is key to elegance. -> IT’S ABOUT BALANCE, OPTIMIZED(?)
is fast inverse square root elegant?