Why is terseness of minimal importance?

[Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>]

Hi Folks,

The mathematician Alfred North Whitehead writes [1]:

> One very important property of symbolism to possess
> is that it should be concise, so as to be visible at one
> glance of the eye and to be rapidly written. 

> ... by the aid of symbolism, we can make transitions in
> reasoning almost mechanically by the eye, which
> otherwise would call into play the higher facilities of
> the brain.

> It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all
> copy-books and by eminent people when they are
> making speeches, that we should cultivate the 
> habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise
> opposite is the case. Civilization advances by
> extending the number of important operations
> which we can perform without thinking about
> them. Operations of thought are like cavalry
> charges in a battle--they are strictly limited in
> number, they require fresh horses, and must
> only be made at decisive moments.

The XML specification says "terseness is of minimal importance." That is the opposite of what Whitehead says. In fact, terseness is of *maximal* importance, yes? Perhaps this explains why data formats such as JSON have been so successful--they are terse. 

Thoughts? 

/Roger

[1] An Introduction to Mathematics by Alfred North Whitehead, p. 41-42.