Programming as a Way of Thinking
This article starts to get at an idea that I've had for a while now -- that mathematicians are doing it wrong.In the software business we learned a long time ago to name our variables properly, name our functions logically, and to control complexity by breaking ideas into modules and then hiding the details inside.If you can't name something, then you don't know what it is, and that tells you that you should rethink your design.Mathematicians don't do that. They name variables "a" or "x", or worse, they use some Greek letter I can't type on my keyboard. They are entirely inconsistent in their use of variables: "phi" or "theta" can mean a zillion different things. I can't tell you the number of times I've read a computer science paper, a paper that uses entirely unnecessary equations, and doesn't bother to define symbols. This practice wastes everyone's time.It's laziness, pure and simple.Mathematics needs a general overhaul. The language of math needs to a complete redesign with a focus on understandability. And the key to it is to force mathematicians to name their variables.Yes, I realize that mathematics deals in abstractions that have little relationship to the outside world, and it makes little sense to call a variable a "dog" or a "car". So what? It just means that we need a new vocabulary, a vocabulary that includes terms like "fourier transform" or "hypotenuse". Pretty much every industry has it's own vocabulary. Chemistry has thousands of terms. Biology even more. Computer science is full of them. Math is full of symbols that have no inherent or well-understood meaning. That should change.