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> The best parallel I can think of (this isn't good, sorry) would be like attaching the type of every variable to every place you use it -- this would technical

> The best parallel I can think of (this isn't good, sorry) would be like attaching the type of every variable to every place you use it -- this would technically make it easier to follow a snippet of code, but create lots of visual noise. At some point we did this very thing and it was the recommended way to write code. And it did indeed create a lot of noise. My understanding of how we moved on from that is that namespacing, aliasing, and in general better code structure started being used. Things are no longer global. How do you make parts of mathematical proofs non-global to the entire proof? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_notation

CJefferson 6y ago
Honestly, I think we could, and should, do much better. If people generally moved on from LaTeX (which is a whole other argument, and one I've had, and lost, on several occasions) to something with more semantic content, it would be much easier to make papers where it was easy to change the style of formatting, make it clear which symbols are "the same", etc.
- alexvoda 6y ago
  > which is a whole other argument, and one I've had, and lost, on several occasions Care to link to it if it's available? I am curious to read that debate.
  - CJefferson 6y ago
    Nothing concrete, I occasionally moan about it on Twitter and here, and in person, for example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17856184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17856184 Ironically, given some of the discussion we've been having, the biggest problem with LaTeX is that it is, once compiled into a PDF, extremely non-accessible and that's very hard to fix (to really understand why it's hard to fix, you need to look at how LaTeX works inside, it's a rewriting system and at no point has anything like a semantic description of the maths).

CJefferson 6y ago

Honestly, I think we could, and should, do much better. If people generally moved on from LaTeX (which is a whole other argument, and one I've had, and lost, on several occasions) to something with more semantic content, it would be much easier to make papers where it was easy to change the style of formatting, make it clear which symbols are "the same", etc.

alexvoda 6y ago
> which is a whole other argument, and one I've had, and lost, on several occasions Care to link to it if it's available? I am curious to read that debate.
- CJefferson 6y ago
  Nothing concrete, I occasionally moan about it on Twitter and here, and in person, for example here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17856184 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17856184 Ironically, given some of the discussion we've been having, the biggest problem with LaTeX is that it is, once compiled into a PDF, extremely non-accessible and that's very hard to fix (to really understand why it's hard to fix, you need to look at how LaTeX works inside, it's a rewriting system and at no point has anything like a semantic description of the maths).