[p1esk]

If you don't undestand where the name "softmax" came from, you don't really understand what it is. Softmax is a differentiable approximation of the max function.

Plot max(0, x) and softmax(0, x) functions, and it should become clear.

[throwaway080383]

Nit: it seems it's more like a smooth approximation to maxarg than max.

Yeah it makes sense that this is a super important function, but I still feel like one could just remember the principle that "exponentiation followed by normalization is a smooth approximation to maxarg."

[p1esk]

Basic building blocks of most deep learning models are convolutional layer, pooling layer, fully connected layer, and softmax layer. How do you propose we call "softmax layer" instead?

[TeMPOraL]

Normalization layer?

This opens up possibility of using something else than softmax in there.

[p1esk]

Well, there are other building blocks, such as batch normalization layer, or local contrast normalization layer (not to mention a dozen of batchnorm alternatives, e.g. group normalization, weight normalization, layer normalization, instance normalization, etc).

If you just say "normalization layer" how am I supposed to know which normalization you're talking about?