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I used to think this way, but as I learned more math, I realized that the way mathematicians do things isn't an issue in practice. I do wish notation was more s
by tnecniv 10y ago
I used to think this way, but as I learned more math, I realized that the way mathematicians do things isn't an issue in practice. I do wish notation was more standardized, but that's a nitpick (i.e. whether/how scalars and vectors are distinguished).
When it comes to proofs, you can only keep so much information in your head at once. In most cases, if you have a ton of variables floating around, you are probably trying to do too much at once and would be better served by breaking out a lemma or two from the main proof.
I will note the worst code I've ever read was written by a control theorist that used only single letter variables. I later found out the variable names were the same as a paper, but the paper was not provided in the program comments.
> Pretty much every industry has it's own vocabulary.
So does math. Open up any textbook and you'll see definitions everywhere. When it is useful to name something, mathematicians normally do.
- vlasev 10y ago> whether/how scalars and vectors are distinguished This becomes less of an issue once you go through some abstract algebra. But typically, constants would come from the start of the English alphabet, and vectors, from the end. > I will note the worst code I've ever read was written by a control theorist that used only single letter variables. I later found out the variable names were the same as a paper, but the paper was not provided in the program comments. Did the code remain "worst" after you found out the names came from a paper?
- tnecniv 10y ago> This becomes less of an issue once you go through some abstract algebra. But typically, constants would come from the start of the English alphabet, and vectors, from the end. That rule gets broke quite a bit though. For example, if you have a optimization program with some affine inequality constraint A * x <= b, it's not uncommon to refer to the individual hyperplane constraints as a_i^T x <= b_i. Math obviously has many more concepts than we have notation so selecting a unique notation for each concept is not feasible, but I bet some standardization can be done. > Did the code remain "worst" after you found out the names came from a paper? No, I am fine with naming things after variables from papers, but I always put a note as to which paper the notation came from. Giving someone a few hundred lines of code where few variables have more than 2 letters and no context is just cruel though.