The Aesthetics of Simplicity
The following material has been extracted from the book
Programming Linguistics by David Gelernter and Suresh Jagannathan
(MIT Press, 1990).
Every student of programming language design should memorize
the Facade of Chartres Cathedral.
According to Henry Adams (in Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres):
The first glimpse that is caught. and the first that was meant
to be caught, is that of the two spires ... nine out of ten --
perhaps ninety-nine in a hundred -- who come within sight
of the two spires of Chartres will think it a jest if they are
told that the smaller of the two, the simpler, the one that impresses
them least, is the one that they are expected to recognize as the most
perfect piece of architecture in the world.
The north (left) spire is a distinguished example of late gothic
building, but it is the "noble south (right) spire" that has for centuries
moved and inspired, by its profound and perfect simplicity, by
its restraint and discipline, by its quality of integration,
by the beauty and grandeur of composition ... where all the
effects are obtained, not by ornaments, but by the just and skillful
proportion of the different parts.
T. K. Prasad