It is a different convention but I don't think it's inherently less understandable. The semantically opaque variable names in math texts are usually accompanied

It is a different convention but I don't think it's inherently less understandable. The semantically opaque variable names in math texts are usually accompanied by some sort of explanation, e.g. "Let x be... and let f(x) be...". Whereas this type of comment is usually required for a proof, comments are often omitted from programming statements when the variable names are self-documenting.