[xelxebar]

Pick up and typical math text and you can find an index of notation in the frontmatter or appendices.

All these complaints about mathematical notation seem really uninspired to me. It's like if I went around complaining that programming shouldn't require all this horribly baroque textual input.

You may or may not have a point , but either way it's certainly not one that's helping you at all.

If you find yourself frustrated at a seemingly nasty piece of notation, often this is a (helpful!) signal that you're not fully grokking things. Make use of that confused feeling to dig deeper.

Admittedly, compared to programming there are considerably fewer online resources for hacking together some maths knowledge. However, in book form there absolutely are tons of excellent materials!

Pick a subject, Google around for text recommendations, and then go raid your local university's library. There are even pretty good IRC channels for various math subjects! Try hitting up #math on freenode.

[rnet85]

I think you just proved his point. Yes, one must invest time and energy to gain fluency, but making the whole process more accessible will always make it easier and welcome more people.