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One interesting observation that popped into my mind when I read the OP: Mathematicians don't write mathematical notation in papers/books by hand anymore, they
by bjornsing 10y ago
One interesting observation that popped into my mind when I read the OP: Mathematicians don't write mathematical notation in papers/books by hand anymore, they use a far more verbose language called LATEX.
Wouldn't it be great if every time you saw a mathematical formula there was a little widget to push that would show you the "source code" in LATEX++, and LATEX++ was like LATEX but made up of stringently defined mathematical operations (like '\element_wise_multiplication' instead of '\plus_sign_with_circle_around_it')? :D
- Smaug123 10y agoIt's good practice anyway in LaTeX to define your own aliases and use them for semantic information. Like in one of my recent projects, I define: \newcommand{\disjointunion}{\sqcup}
- bjornsing 10y agoNow we're getting close to the heart of the matter: In LaTeX it's "good practice" to define the semantics of operators, in programming languages it's an absolute requirement.
- stdbrouw 10y agoYeah, it's a bummer that LaTeX math notation is really just markup and has no indication of what belongs together and what the purpose of various symbols is.
- catnaroek 10y agoLaTeX... now that is unreadable. Traditional mathematical notation is just fine.
- bjornsing 10y agoHave you seen x86 machine code? ;P
- catnaroek 10y agoLong ago, when I took a computer architecture course, I learnt the 8086's instruction format. I don't remember a single thing about it.
- pwdisswordfish 10y agoWell, when I write TeX (and I stick to the "good practice" of defining "semantic" macros for common symbols), I often notice myself finding the TeX source code more readable than the PDF it produces.