[joshuanapoli]

Mathematical notation usually has a problem with preferring single-letter names. We usually prefer to avoid highly abbreviated identifier names in software, because they make the program harder to read. But they’re common in Math, and I think that it makes for a lot of work jumping back and forth to remind oneself what each symbol means when trying to make sense of a statement.

[tsimionescu]

I think the main difference is that in programming you typically use names from your domain, like "request" or "student". But math objects are all very abstract, they don't denote any domain. For example, if I have a triangle and I want to name its vertexes so I can refer to them later, what would be a good name? Should I call them vertexA, vertexB, and vertexC just so it's not a single letter?