Translations:Prologue/24/en

Like the famous line “I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time,” it’s easier to write a program in sloppy code that goes on for pages than to write the same program on a single page. The sloppy version may also run more slowly and use more memory. Over the course of that hike, I had the time to write short. On that long day I slimmed it down more, like whittling little pieces off a stick to sharpen the point. What I made seemed efficient and pleasingly simple. It was by far the best code I had ever written.