| We’re talking in a context of scientific software here. > I'd hate to have to learn which Greek letters correspond to which operations every time I dive into a new codebase. You have to do that anyway, because you’ll have to connect the code you’re working on with the scientific paper describing it. When the code uses variable names too far removed from the mathematical symbols, you have to do make two steps: figure out how the words connect to symbols and then figure out the symbols. This will be especially difficult for the mathematician/scientist without a strong coding background: they’ll have much less friction reading code that matches the symbolic notation and Greek letters that they’re used to. > The advantage of English words is that everyone knows them. Not when it comes to “math” words. > `Σλ∀φ` is a chore to read for me. Right, but that’s because you have a different background. For me, `Σλ∀φ` is much easier to read and understand. More importantly, a symbolic notation is much denser, which allows to parse long expression that would be very hard to understand if they were written out in words. Again, this is for the very specific context of highly mathematical/scientific software that Julia excels at and is primarily used for. In a more general context (when the software isn’t a direct representation of a scientific paper), I’m 100% on board with good, descriptive variable names |