🚀 go-pugleaf

In article  <KHB.90Jan29185013@chiba.kbierman@sun.com> khb@chiba.kbierman@sun.com (Keith Bierman - SPD Advanced Languages) writes:
>
>*sigh* Do mathfolk forget what
>              T  -1
>	A = (A A)
>
>means a week after writing it down ? It is absurd to believe that what
>has worked for a thousand years of mathematics won't work for
>programming language.	

This is not a good anology.  First, mathematical writings are usually
much shorter than programs.  Second, mathematical writings usually are
accompanied by more English explanation than notation.  Third,
mathatical notation usually has a much longer time of consideration
behind it than does code.  Fourth, mathameticians usually either write
all their own notation or independently and exhaustively review any
notation writen by a co-author.

I think that if a mathematitican wrote two thousand pages of dense
notation with less than, say 20% of it English text, then yes, he
would forget what some of the notation stands for.
-- 
					David Gudeman
Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona        gudeman@cs.arizona.edu
Tucson, AZ 85721                 noao!arizona!gudeman