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Domain-specific languages, notation, and vocabulary exist for many disciplines. They are for the benefit of experienced practitioners and allow them to express

by krapht 10y ago

Domain-specific languages, notation, and vocabulary exist for many disciplines. They are for the benefit of experienced practitioners and allow them to express common concepts and ideas in a precise and concise fashion to those who have been also been trained in the art. Sometimes jargon, abbreviations, and cryptic notation exist to artificially make it harder for outsiders to understand what's going on, but the examples in this post don't convince me. The true issue here is that the appropriate Wikipedia article has no link to the "Simple English" version. Most humans are capable of using context to distinguish usage. Operator overloading in programming languages and in mathematics can be useful sometimes.

bjornsing 10y ago
> Most humans are capable of using context to distinguish usage. Operator overloading in programming languages and in mathematics can be useful sometimes. No doubt about it! But the difference as I see it, and what the OP is complaining about, is that in domain specific programming languages it's always possible to find a definition for the notation (an overloaded operator is defined somewhere, and so on); whereas in mathematics the only real definition is in the head of a mathematician. I have to agree with the OP, that sucks. :(
stdbrouw 10y ago
The problem is that while it's easy as an expert to distinguish usage using context, it can make things needlessly hard on students who are learning new concepts, because whenever they're faced with something they don't understand they have to worry about whether they don't understand the concept or whether they don't understand the terminology. For example, sin^2(x) is often used as a shorthand for sin(x)^2 when really it should mean sin(sin(x)). Or in basic combinatorics, n and k and s can mean pretty much whatever the author wants it to mean, which is a pity when you could just standardize on something.

by krapht 10y ago

bjornsing 10y ago

> Most humans are capable of using context to distinguish usage. Operator overloading in programming languages and in mathematics can be useful sometimes. No doubt about it! But the difference as I see it, and what the OP is complaining about, is that in domain specific programming languages it's always possible to find a definition for the notation (an overloaded operator is defined somewhere, and so on); whereas in mathematics the only real definition is in the head of a mathematician. I have to agree with the OP, that sucks. :(

stdbrouw 10y ago

The problem is that while it's easy as an expert to distinguish usage using context, it can make things needlessly hard on students who are learning new concepts, because whenever they're faced with something they don't understand they have to worry about whether they don't understand the concept or whether they don't understand the terminology. For example, sin^2(x) is often used as a shorthand for sin(x)^2 when really it should mean sin(sin(x)). Or in basic combinatorics, n and k and s can mean pretty much whatever the author wants it to mean, which is a pity when you could just standardize on something.