One thing hackers like is brevity. Hackers are lazy, in the same way that
mathematicians and modernist architects are lazy: they hate anything
extraneous. It would not be far from the truth to say that a hacker about to
write a program decides what language to use, at least subconsciously, based
on the total number of characters he'll have to type. If this isn't
precisely how hackers think, a language designer would do well to act as if
it were.

It is a mistake to try to baby the user with long-winded expressions that
are meant to resemble English. Cobol is notorious for this flaw. A hacker
would consider being asked to write

add x to y giving z

instead of

z = x+y

as something between an insult to his intelligence and a sin against God.

Paul Graham / "Being Popular" - http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html