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Edit: formatting > badly formatted I apologize for this. Flexport uses the Medium.com platform, and I couldn't find any better way to write math notation than

Edit: formatting > badly formatted I apologize for this. Flexport uses the Medium.com platform, and I couldn't find any better way to write math notation than embedding LaTeX gists. > needlessly obscure notation I agree 100%! I would like to hear ideas about how to eliminate this notation. I feel it's keeping too many people away from the field. > never gets around to actually writing down a model in MathProg or Pyomo or anything similar Again, spot on. The post was long enough without explaining how to do it in Pyomo, so I'm saving that for part 3.

kragen 7y ago
> I agree 100%! I would like to hear ideas about how to eliminate this notation. I feel it's keeping too many people away from the field. I didn't mean you shouldn't use the standard mathematical notation, which seems to be what you're talking about. I meant you should use it in the standard way. Don't use superscripts that are neither powers nor variables; for example, don't use U^M to mean "max weight capacity" and U^V to mean "max volume capacity". UM and UV, M and V, or even U_M and U_V would be an improvement. Don't typeset your display math with the subscripts to the right of the Σ as if it were part of a paragraph; put them underneath. Don't put extra spaces in the middle of your subscripts. If you only have two subscripts (with numeric values, not things like "M" and "V"), it's okay and probably better to make one of them a superscript, especially if you parenthesize it to reduce the chance that people will mistake it for a power. Don't leave out your variable of summation when you write Σyⱼcⱼ or, as you did in another case, write it in upper case. Don't write sets as comma-separated sequences of elements without {} around them. Alternatively you could write the whole model down in GNU MathProg, which is more verbose but not that much, arguably more precise, and universally understood by people who work in the field in anything other than pure theory. Or Pyomo, which I've never written anything in, but assume can't be that much worse or nobody would use it. Either way it would be easier to use multi-letter names for your variables and parameters if you thought that made things clearer. I don't think the standard mathematical notation is keeping people away from the field; students who already know basic algebra don't seem to have much trouble with the notation. Figuring out how to make reasonable MILP models or how to diagnose the problem when the solver says your model is infeasible, those seem to take a lot more work. > Flexport uses the Medium.com platform, Why? You want to screen people out of your recruiting process that haven't signed up for Medium accounts? Or you want to signal that you're a nontechnical company that can't figure out how to install Wordpress? There are Docker images for that now, you know.
- 7thaccount 7y ago
  On the last note, I'm guessing the engineers or analysts working on MIP models want to work on that and not also go learn and maintain their own blog site where Medium suffices. The article seems to be free to read without an account. I've read dozens of Medium blog posts over the past few years and learned all about companies without making an account. It is proprietary and closed off like FB and other sites are, but that's still a lot easier than WordPress + Docker woes if that is not part of your core business.

kragen 7y ago

> I agree 100%! I would like to hear ideas about how to eliminate this notation. I feel it's keeping too many people away from the field. I didn't mean you shouldn't use the standard mathematical notation, which seems to be what you're talking about. I meant you should use it in the standard way. Don't use superscripts that are neither powers nor variables; for example, don't use U^M to mean "max weight capacity" and U^V to mean "max volume capacity". UM and UV, M and V, or even U_M and U_V would be an improvement. Don't typeset your display math with the subscripts to the right of the Σ as if it were part of a paragraph; put them underneath. Don't put extra spaces in the middle of your subscripts. If you only have two subscripts (with numeric values, not things like "M" and "V"), it's okay and probably better to make one of them a superscript, especially if you parenthesize it to reduce the chance that people will mistake it for a power. Don't leave out your variable of summation when you write Σyⱼcⱼ or, as you did in another case, write it in upper case. Don't write sets as comma-separated sequences of elements without {} around them. Alternatively you could write the whole model down in GNU MathProg, which is more verbose but not that much, arguably more precise, and universally understood by people who work in the field in anything other than pure theory. Or Pyomo, which I've never written anything in, but assume can't be that much worse or nobody would use it. Either way it would be easier to use multi-letter names for your variables and parameters if you thought that made things clearer. I don't think the standard mathematical notation is keeping people away from the field; students who already know basic algebra don't seem to have much trouble with the notation. Figuring out how to make reasonable MILP models or how to diagnose the problem when the solver says your model is infeasible, those seem to take a lot more work. > Flexport uses the Medium.com platform, Why? You want to screen people out of your recruiting process that haven't signed up for Medium accounts? Or you want to signal that you're a nontechnical company that can't figure out how to install Wordpress? There are Docker images for that now, you know.

7thaccount 7y ago
On the last note, I'm guessing the engineers or analysts working on MIP models want to work on that and not also go learn and maintain their own blog site where Medium suffices. The article seems to be free to read without an account. I've read dozens of Medium blog posts over the past few years and learned all about companies without making an account. It is proprietary and closed off like FB and other sites are, but that's still a lot easier than WordPress + Docker woes if that is not part of your core business.