[vertere]

Standard notation like sigma for sum isn't really a descriptiveness issue, everyone knows what that means. Not dissimilar to programming languages using `+` instead of `plus()`. Non-standard variables are where more descriptive names would be useful, though the tendency to use single letter (greek or otherwise) names is reinforced partly by writing `ab` for `a*b`.

Also much of math notation is effectively 2d. Programming langs use linear text. Latex syntax is sometimes used for a linear-text representation (even if it's not intended to be rendered), but it reduces readability.

And people still write equations by hand a lot, because the notation is more efficient than typing it out.

[xigoi]

LaTeX has at least solved the concatenation problem: ab means a*b, whereas \text{ab} is a word.

[pchangr]

I literally just mentioned that. LaTeX is AFAIK a language created to describe mathematical notation