I recently held a science slam about this topic! It’s a mix of the first computer scientists being mathematicians, who love their abbreviations, and limited screen size, memory and file size. It’s a trend in computing that has been well justified in the past, but has been making it harder for people to work together. And the need to use abbreviations has completely gone with the age of auto completion and language servers.
Man, I hate that so much. I swear this was half the reason I struggled with maths and physics, that these guys need to write this:
Rather than this:
At some point, they even collectively decided that not having to write a multiplication dot is more important than being able to use more than a single letter for your variables. Just what the fuck?
Thing is, you usually define all your variables. At least we do in engineering (of physical variety, rather than software).
Mostly because we can’t expect everyone reading the calculation to know, and that not everyone uses the same symbols.
Not explaining each variable is bad practice, other than for very simple things. (I do expect everyone and their dog reading a process eng calc to know PV=nRT, at a minimum).
Just like (in my opinion) not defining industry specific abbreviations is also bad practice.
But Nah, I think assumed knowledge of PV=nRT is fair in context, since if you don’t know what it is, you’ll only be reading the conclusion, not getting into the weeds of a calculation document.
I’m not going even going to be explaining if I have a column that’s says volumetric flow rate, with V=m/ρ. If I give mass flow rate and density (with units, of course), and use these extremely common symbols, and someone doesn’t understand, then they have no real business getting to this level of detail anyway.
I do agree that in most cases not defining your variables is bad practice, but there is some nuance, depending on the intended audience and how common a formula is, and the format of whatever it is you’re writing.
I recently held a science slam about this topic! It’s a mix of the first computer scientists being mathematicians, who love their abbreviations, and limited screen size, memory and file size. It’s a trend in computing that has been well justified in the past, but has been making it harder for people to work together. And the need to use abbreviations has completely gone with the age of auto completion and language servers.
Man, I hate that so much. I swear this was half the reason I struggled with maths and physics, that these guys need to write this:
Rather than this:
At some point, they even collectively decided that not having to write a multiplication dot is more important than being able to use more than a single letter for your variables. Just what the fuck?
Thing is, you usually define all your variables. At least we do in engineering (of physical variety, rather than software).
Mostly because we can’t expect everyone reading the calculation to know, and that not everyone uses the same symbols.
Not explaining each variable is bad practice, other than for very simple things. (I do expect everyone and their dog reading a process eng calc to know PV=nRT, at a minimum).
Just like (in my opinion) not defining industry specific abbreviations is also bad practice.
Mathematicians don’t do this? Shame on them.
Still bad, i’m not a computer with a lookup table in memory.
What is “eng”?
Lol fair point regarding Eng: “Engineering”.
But Nah, I think assumed knowledge of PV=nRT is fair in context, since if you don’t know what it is, you’ll only be reading the conclusion, not getting into the weeds of a calculation document.
I’m not going even going to be explaining if I have a column that’s says volumetric flow rate, with V=m/ρ. If I give mass flow rate and density (with units, of course), and use these extremely common symbols, and someone doesn’t understand, then they have no real business getting to this level of detail anyway.
I do agree that in most cases not defining your variables is bad practice, but there is some nuance, depending on the intended audience and how common a formula is, and the format of whatever it is you’re writing.