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As the joke goes Programmer : chooses her variables always different, with a name as explicit as possible Mathematician : chooses her variables from a handful o
by donmatito 9y ago
As the joke goes
Programmer : chooses her variables always different, with a name as explicit as possible
Mathematician : chooses her variables from a handful of greek letters
- banku_brougham 9y agoYou would grant that this is not a funny-haha joke.
- ska 9y ago... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty. So everyone reading it understands what is going on. Unfortunately, it doesn't generalize across specialties. By comparison, the programmer chooses names explicitly based her own understanding and modeling of the problem, which may confuse others. both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
- taneq 9y ago> ... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty I think you mean sub-sub-sub-subspecialty. I don't often read mathematics papers but when I do, it's infuriating how people think that [squiggle] has a universally understood meaning when in actual fact there are only a handful of people in the world (most of whom probably work in the same building as the author) who use [squiggle] to mean that.
- ska 9y agoNo, I mean sub-speciality. At least, my experience is nothing like you describe. For the most part, the people who are likely to attend each others conference talks agree on notation. They may, however, disagree with the people down the hall. Bear in mind, though, the papers are written for that same group. For good or for ill.
- pps43 9y ago> that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty. You mean, like p in statistics?
- ska 9y agoNo, which is why my statement is not stronger than it was.