> Every abbreviation adds to the cognitive load the person has to maintain in their head. I think your claim that abbreviations are always more cognitive load

> Every abbreviation adds to the cognitive load the person has to maintain in their head. I think your claim that abbreviations are always more cognitive load is wrong. For the sake of argument, let's take it at face value though. These are not even code abbreviations. They are literal translations to the math notation. The input "x" is not an abbreviation, it's a well defined value in neural network terminology. If they called it something more descriptive like "input_vector_to_first_layer_of_neural_net", this would be more cognitive load because someone reviewing this now needs to mentally map this to "x" in the algorithm anytime they are reviewing both. Now, to your claim itself, I think it's unfair to say abbreviations are always more cognitive load. These variables are significantly more approachable because they follow convention. I see "x" and I know what that is. If every individual developer went ahead and rewrote every neural net with something they viewed as more interpretable in their personal context, it'd be a lot harder to understand what is going on for everyone. The variable itself may be longer, but I might actually need a prose explanation of the variable's purpose because now I don't have the context of well established naming convention.