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The comments actually hit on the real solution to notation issues: it should be executable.

It might require a library or file of accompanying "assumptions" that enables a concise "display" notation that appears in the text, but it would allow anyone to examine and understand what was being specified by having a common, concrete base of reference and the ability to query and examine it from whatever angle works for the reader.

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Or pseudo-code.

I can take some pseudo-code and turn it into a working C (or python) implementation to poke at without too much trouble but papers with pure algorithmic notation usually get put in the "I'll look at that later" folder which I never get around to looking at.

Granted, I'm not the intended audience for most of the papers I read since I have no formal CS (or math) education -- though enough information is out on the interwebs depending on how motivated I am to try out whatever shiny-new I'm learning about.

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