Personal experience tells me that size is probably a proxy for "this code is mathematically written". If you have even a vague idea of the math of the code you're writing, the code tends to be both shorter and have fewer bugs. But, I'd be wary of turning that around to a blanket endorsement of terseness. Terse code often needs to be restructured when requirements change. Restructuring takes more time and also risks adding new bugs. Then there are problems with readability during debugging and understanding interfaces.