Hacker News Reader

>I also don't see how Mathematica's notation is any better; I view it as way worse.

Besides the obvious readability improvement, it's better in that it retains the semantics of the underlying math more.

As a professional mathematician, I see it the same way a musician views musical notation. Sure, writing the name of each note on the stave would be easier to read at first, but the seemingly complex notation then allows for a much quicker understanding (see how talented pianists can sight read very complicated scores; I doubt this could be possible with a more verbose notation). Similarly, I have no trouble parsing (correctly written) LaTeX mentally.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com