Timeline for Why did mathematical notation stay so hard to read? [closed]
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
30 events
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| Jun 18, 2020 at 10:45 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @IosifPinelis for the sake of not giving you the wrong impression about programming languages, I'd just like to say that Ruby is definitely not the best example of a human-oriented language, even if the purpose was explicitly there, and is in fact one of the languages that is often derided for being "write-only". If you want to see a modern language, take a look at Swift or Kotlin. I'm of the opinion that a well-defined syntax actually benefits humans too, I'm sure an omitted parenthesis would leave you confused too. I think we can agree there is always room for improvement in notation. ;) | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 16:52 | comment | added | Iosif Pinelis | @AndrewPeterPrifer : I certainly understand the desire to make programming code as readable for humans as possible. However, the inherent limitation here is that computers, too, have to be able to understand the code. So far, any computer software seems to be very fussy about things like a missing parenthesis or a semicolon. This limitation may be overcome by AI in the future. However, given Ruby suggested as the best example of a human-oriented computer language, we seem to be very very far from that goal yet. In mathematics, fortunately we are already there. :-) | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 11:46 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @WillSawin good point! | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 11:43 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @IosifPinelis I am a software engineer by trade. I can confidently say that modern programming languages are primarily created for humans, so much so that we are willing to make trade-offs in performance to accommodate this. I personally agree that Ruby can be unreadable in the wrong hands, but the sentiment of the language's author was the point here, which is to make it more pleasant to write and read. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 11:34 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @MattF. I understand your point, however I feel that removing all even somewhat sentimentally charged words would make any discussion much less enjoyable, while keeping them doesn't preclude the rigor with which we evaluate each other's opinions. ;) I also think that the context I gave ("being frustrated", "what actual mathematicians think") makes it obvious that this post reflects my problems specifically. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 11:25 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @LSpice nice example, thank you! | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 11:23 | comment | added | Andrew Peter Prifer | @YCor I do see how the post can be perceived as primarily opinion based, however I don't think that the "rant" in this case invalidates the question. | |
| Jun 17, 2020 at 10:27 | vote | accept | Andrew Peter Prifer | ||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 18:03 | comment | added | J.J. Green |
@IosifPinelis: Nice example. Suppose you want a quote in a string, like this is "a string". You can do that in C with "this is \"a string\"", not nice. The %Q construct allows you to write %Q[this is "a string"], your string has square brackets in it? %Q(this [is] a "string"), and so on. Why go to this effort? Because code is read more than written, and by humans.
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 17:57 | history | closed |
Steven Landsburg Lucia Lee Mosher Alexandre Eremenko Timothy Chow |
Not suitable for this site | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 17:39 | comment | added | Michael Renardy | Have you ever tried to read mathematics from the middle ages? No one letter constants and variables, all ASCII symbols. But ... | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:32 | comment | added | Iosif Pinelis | @J.J.Green : Following your link, I have found this sample of Ruby code, supposedly written for humans: "a = "\nThis is a double-quoted string\n" a = %Q{\nThis is a double-quoted string\n} a = %{\nThis is a double-quoted string\n} a = %/\nThis is a double-quoted string\n/ a = <<-BLOCK This is a double-quoted string BLOCK" I will probably have a headache if I try to read 50 lines of such code. Also, I see many people asking questions online such as "Is Ruby dead?" | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:13 | comment | added | Alexandre Eremenko | It is a question of habit. As a mathematician, I find computer programmers notations awkward and hard to read and memorize. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 16:08 | comment | added | J.J. Green | @IosifPinelis: programming code has to read by computers, but that does not preclude it being written for humans, for many modern languages the latter is the primary goal of the design | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:50 | comment | added | Iosif Pinelis | I think mathematical formulas are much easier (for humans) to grasp and read than programming code. Indeed, mathematical formulas are written for humans, whereas programming code is written for computers. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:44 | comment | added | Lee Mosher | The elementary answers available to some of your questions indicate that this post was not thought through very carefully. "Was there every a movement to make mathematics more readable?" Yes, it's the movement called "refereeing"; every referee insists on improved readability. "Does it ever get better with enough experience?" Yes, every paper a mathematician writes is improved by their continued experience with reading other papers and writing their previous papers. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 15:29 | comment | added | user44143 | I'd be sympathetic to this question if it were phrased more neutrally. If you're not trying to stir up an argument, then the words "crammed", "ridicule" and "really" are tendentious. Similarly, if you're asking a question of mathematicians, it would help to say that symbols are hard to remember for you, and that the expressions look like symbol noise to you. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:30 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:28 | comment | added | Dave L Renfro | Strongly related are Why are symbols not written in words? and Why do mathematicians use single-letter variables? Somewhat related are Does notation ever become “easier”? and How to avoid getting “lost in notation” | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:26 | comment | added | LSpice | Was there ever a movement to make mathematics more readable? My understanding is that that's at least part of what motivated Iverson's work, and … well, not everyone agrees that readability is what resulted. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:25 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 18:04 | |||||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:20 | answer | added | Ben McKay | timeline score: 5 | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:20 | comment | added | darij grinberg | What @WillSawin said. Keep in mind that mathematics is often done on paper, where there is no tab-completion. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:14 | comment | added | Will Sawin | Often in math variables don't actually have any practical meaning. I don't think it will help to state the Baker-Campbell-Hausdorff formula as $\operatorname{LogOfProdOfExps}(\operatorname{FirstLieAlgElem}, \operatorname{SecondLieAlgElem} ) = \operatorname{FirstLieAlgElem} + \operatorname{SecondLieAlgElem}.+ \frac{1}{2} \operatorname{Commutator} (\operatorname{FirstLieAlgElem}, \operatorname{SecondLieAlgElem} ) + \dots$ or a less intentionally-unnecessarily-wordy example along the same lines. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:10 | comment | added | YCor | Typically motivating this meta-post: Primarily opinion-based questions | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:07 | history | edited | Steven Landsburg |
edited tags
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:03 | history | edited | leo monsaingeon |
added [sof-Q] and [meta-maths] tags
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 13:59 | comment | added | user1504 | Specific examples might help your question. | |
| Jun 16, 2020 at 13:57 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 14:03 | |||||
| Jun 16, 2020 at 13:51 | history | asked | Andrew Peter Prifer | CC BY-SA 4.0 |