When designing small scripts or short-lived software, implicit behavior often feels productive.
The language guesses your intent.
Defaults kick in.
Short syntax saves keystrokes.
Everything looks fine.
Until the system grows.
The illusion of productivity
Implicit behavior is often sold as convenience.
And in small contexts, it is.
But convenience scales poorly.
As systems grow, implicit behavior becomes:
silent assumptions
hidden contracts
multiple interpretations of the same construct
At that point, what once felt productive starts turning into:
bugs that are hard to reproduce
behavior that depends on context instead of intent
systems that are fragile by design
The problem is not verbosity.
The problem is ambiguity.
Ambiguity is not a syntax issue
Ambiguity is often treated as a stylistic choice.
It’s not.
It’s a design failure.
When a language allows:
implicit type conversions
inferred intent without explicit declaration
multiple meanings for the same construct
behavior that changes silently across contexts
It is no longer helping the developer —
it is guessing.
And guessing does not scale.
Why verbosity is not the enemy
Verbosity is visible.
Ambiguity is invisible.
You can refactor verbosity.
You can’t refactor assumptions you don’t know exist.
In long-lived systems, clarity is cheaper than cleverness.
Explicit code:
documents intent
exposes boundaries
survives team changes
survives time
Treating ambiguity as a design error
This perspective led me to work on Klar, an experimental programming language that takes a hard stance:
no implicit behavior
no inferred intent
no ambiguous constructs
no hidden boundaries between languages or contexts
If something matters, it must be stated explicitly.
If behavior is important, it must be written.
The language should not guess.
This is not about being beginner-friendly
Strictness is often confused with hostility.
Klar does not try to be friendly at first glance.
It optimizes for:
clarity
predictability
long-term stability
polyglot system boundaries
Learning curves are temporary.
Ambiguity debt is permanent.
Final thought
Implicit behavior feels fast — until it isn’t.
Verbosity feels slow — until you need to understand a system years later.
When designing languages or systems meant to live long,
ambiguity is more dangerous than verbosity.
If you’re curious, the project and its manifesto live 👉 here 👈
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