I'd be interested to hear about 7 Billion Humans from anyone picking it up this week on PC, as I'll be waiting for the Switch port, which is undated but supposedly coming next.
When you say short, do you mean in terms of lines of code or the number of processor cycles?
To clarify what's in the game (I played HRM to 100% with all bonus objectives when it launched as one of the earliest indie ports to the Switch), every puzzle in HRM has two bonus objectives, a benchmark for "fewest lines of code" and one for "fewest steps executed". The latter often involves duplicating a lot of code to catch edge cases and avoid needless jump/goto instructions. You often have to achieve these goals separately as you get into the later puzzles, as sometimes there isn't a feasible solution that meets both benchmarks at once, but that's why the game lets you save three scripts per puzzle.
I played half of HRM, felt overwhelmed by the puzzles and hated the fact that the short code solution wasn't the one that used less power or cycles or whatever.
I love efficient code writing, but apparently it makes processes slower.
I'm no programmer at all, I like puzzle games, and my only programming experience is mostly MatLab (some Maple too), and what I like most of having efficient code, comments everywhere, and everything color coded and properly indented.
Clearly I'm not fit to be a programmer.
That's the trade-off involved in all programming, really, and why most day-to-day consumer-facing programming takes place in high-level languages rather than assembly—easy to read, easy to maintain, at the cost of computational inefficiencies that don't really matter with the computing power we have on modern devices. It's a totally different story if you are working close to the metal (on a micro scale where every instruction counts due to considerations like power consumption or limited memory—precisely what HRM was designed to teach) or on a gigantic scale where inefficiencies really stack up on you.
Readability to humans vs. efficient processing is always the balance you have to strike, and HRM drums this into your head quite elegantly. Most coders never think about the latter.
You'd do quite well in something like Python or Java (where tidy, readable, non-redundant, well-organized code will make you many, many friends). Just stay away from microprocessors or low-power electronics.