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Comment on Ask HN: Why is math so obsessed with ancient syntax and frameworks?

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Math is not obsessed with ancient syntax, but, being written by hand, it is obsessed by short and 2d syntax.

If you did math with a keyboard, you could use bigger identifiers, and you would use a. ore linear syntax.

See for example Gerald Sussman's works eg. in SICM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of...

Now this won't really happen because while theorems and algorithms are basically two faces of the same thing, programs are boring, while theorems are deep: in a program, there are a lot of small trivial theorems, that don't bring anything new to human knowledge in general (just some green printed paper to their "owners"), while in mathematicians' works, theorems are scarce, hard to demonstrate, and bring sometimes revolutionary new knowledge to humanity.

This means that apart from the still exceptionnal case of computer assisted theorem proofs, there is much more thinking time than typing/writing time in maths than in programming. Therefor mathematical writing is done by hand and short notations are not a problem.

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