Expressiveness of languages

Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror asks in his new post "What Can You Build in 600 Lines of Code?". It reminded me of Babel-17, a novel by Samuel R. Delany. I must have read that novel 10 to 15 years ago and by now I have forgotten most of the details in it (and I'm now again grateful to Wikipedia for having reminded me of some the details.) However, among several things that I do remember (some strong images, transformation of one of the characters) there is one particular passage that stuck with me even now after all these years and readily sprang to my mind when I read Jeff's post. Here it goes (heroin Rydra talking to character named Butcher about the expressiveness of languages):

"... Now: there is a huge solar-energy conversion plant that supplies all the electrical energy for the Court. The heat amplifying and reducing components take up an area a little bigger than Tarik. One (,'iribian can slither through that plant and then go describe it to another ^iribian who never saw it before so that the-second can build an exact duplicate, even to the color the walls are painted—and this actually happened, because they thought we'd done something ingenious with one of the circuits and wanted to try it themselves—where each piece is located, how big it is, in short completely describe the whole business, in nine words. Nine very small words, too,"

The Butcher shook his head. "No. A solar-heat conversion system is too complicated. These hands dismantle one, not too long ago. Too big. Not—"

"Yep, Butcher, nine words. In English it would take a couple of books full of schematics and electrical and architectural specifications. They have the proper nine words- We don't."

"Impossible."

I always remember that passage by the crucial part: "They have the proper nine words- We don't." I have always found "nine words" to be really exaggerated but then it's a really compelling idea that stuck with me all these years. It goes to the core of expressiveness of languages in their proper context and is an example of domain specific languages: for ^iribians from the novel "their whole culture is based on heat and changes in temperature" so they have nine very short words to describe a whole solar-energy conversion plant.

Going back to Jeff's example of a production application in less than 600 lines: Ruby leveraged by Ruby On Rails is really expressive for certain types of problems. It's a web application framework after all and it's really expressive for problems of web applications. And it is this narrowing of context that allows it to be so expressive. It is built on a whole stack of software/hardware to get to that point in which less than 600 lines of code can become a full blown application:
1. Ruby On Rails is written in Ruby.
2. Ruby's interpreter is written in C and relies on C run-time library.
3. C run-time library is compiler- and OS- specific and is written in C itself, OS-specific calls and probably some assembly.
4. C compiler needed to build Ruby interpreter and C run-time library was probably written in C itself and some assembly.
5. OS was also most probably written in C and some assembly.
6. Assembler is needed to translate assembly into machine code.
7. Generated machine specific code (either from C compiler or assembler) is executed on CPU's microcode.
8. CPU's microcode was designed in software tools which are themselves written in some computer language running on an OS and on some previously designed hardware. And so on.

Not to mention that you also have a whole set of protocols (HTTP, TCP/IP), software, drivers, network cards, switches, networks and so on that allow you to transfer data to and from Ta-Da (the application in question.) At the top of all this stack is a very specific context of web applications in which Ruby On Rail excels.

Now consider the following passage from the same novel (same conversation, immediately prior to the passage I quoted above):

Take the ^iribians, who have enough knowledge to sail their triple-yoked poached eggs from star to star: they have no word for 'house', 'home', or 'dwelling'. 'We must protect our families and our homes.' When we were preparing the treaty between the (^iribians and ourselves at the Court of Outer Worlds, i remember that sentence took forty-five minutes to say in ^iribian. Their whole culture is based on heat and changes in temperature. We're just lucky that they do know what a 'family' is, because they're the only ones besides humans who have them. But for'house'you have to end up describing'. . .an enclosure that creates a temperature discrepancy with the outside environment of so many degrees, capable of keeping comfortable a creature with a uniform body temperature of ninety-eight-point-six, the same enclosure being able to lower the temperature during the months of the warm season and rise it during the cold season, providing a location where organic sustenance can be refrigerated in order to be preserved, or warmed well above the boiling point of water to pamper the taste mechanism of the indigenous habitant who, through customs that go back through millions of hot and cold seasons, have habitually sought out this temperature changing device . . .' and so forth and so on. At the end you have given them some idea of what a 'home' is and why it is worth protecting. Give them a schematic of the air-conditioning and central heating system and things begin to get through.

So whereas a ^iribians language can express "solar-energy conversion plant" in "nine very small words" it took "forty-five minutes" to say "We must protect our families and our homes." in it. (again I find these examples exaggerated... but I haven't yet had to communicate with an extraterrestrial culture so for all I know this could really turn out to be close to truth.) So even though you can write a whole application in Ruby On Rails in under 600 lines of code, it only works in the context for which Ruby On Rails was designed. Change the context and it would probably become incredibly inefficient and/or impossible in expressing the solution. How would you write an OS driver in Ruby On Rails? I would probably build a web C compiler and linker, then write the driver in C and compile and link it with Ruby On Rails!

Disclaimer: this is most definitely not a critique of Ruby On Rails! We use different languages in different contexts and today I wouldn't try to write a web application in C. I'm just discussing the expressiveness of languages in their contexts and outside of them.

Update: fixed some minor typos and layout errors.