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A comment on Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical notation. Parent comment

Re:Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical no... by zamfi on Tuesday July 21, 2020 @11:51PM (#23913753)
> If the most you can say about a parameter to a higher order function is that it is "a function", then "f" is the best name for it

Of course. But even in FP languages you don’t name all your functions “f”! At some level of abstraction, sure, you use “i” for index variables, etc., but once you back out of that low level, you are going to be naming things that are less abstract.

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Re:Terry Tao on some desirable properties of mathematical no... by the_af on Wednesday July 22, 2020 @09:20AM (#23916655)
Agreed. I'd say Math is a lot like the abstract parts of FP, and so short variable names make sense there, just like they do in higher order FP functions. Choosing "more descriptive" names risks locking you into a specific metaphor and prevents you from seeing the big picture, which seems doubly dangerous in Math.
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