[csense]

Why not just use a symlink?

    ln -s ~/super/long/nested/directory/name ~/short

If you don't want to dump them in your home directory, just make a directory with a single-letter name for your links:

    ln -s ~/super/long/nested/directory/name ~/l/short

[biscarch]

Personally I do something similar. I set up an alias in .zshrc from project names to commands. This allows me to do things like source environments as well.

    alias proj="cd /this/that/foo/projects/myproject/ && source .hsenv/bin/activate"