Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I have a strong mathematical background, and I found the notation completely insane. Right out of the gate in chapter 1 we get a definition that has subscript indices in the subscript index and a summation with subscripts in the superscript, and then composed in a giant function chain. Later we get to 4-level subscripts deep, invent at least 3 new infix operators, define 30 new symbols from 3 different alphabets and we're barely at page 100 out of 600. I have no idea who is supposed to follow and digest this


I’m not sure what specialization of math you studied, but using superscripts for indices is pretty common where you’re dealing with multi-dimensional objects. I used it in a lot of the courses in my degree.


I have no problem with superscripts. Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about:

  \left(\Psi_{L} \circ \mathcal{A}_{l_{L}, l_{L-1}}^{\theta, \sum_{k=1}^{L-1} l_{k}\left(l_{k-1}+1\right)} \circ\right. & \Psi_{L-1} \circ \mathcal{A}_{l_{L-1}, l_{L-2}}^{\theta, \sum_{k=1}^{L-2} l_{k}\left(l_{k-1}+1\right)} \circ \ldots \\
  & \left.\ldots \circ \Psi_{2} \circ \mathcal{A}_{l_{2}, l_{1}}^{\theta, l_{1}\left(l_{0}+1\right)} \circ \Psi_{1} \circ \mathcal{A}_{l_{1}, l_{0}}^{\theta, 0}\right)
and

  x_{\mathcal{L}(\Psi)+k-1} & =\mathfrak{M}_{a \mathbb{1}_{(0, L)}(\mathcal{L}(\Psi)+k-1)+\mathrm{id}_{\mathbb{R}} \mathbb{1}_{\{L\}}(\mathcal{L}(\Psi)+k-1), \mathbb{D}_{k}(\Phi)}\left(\mathcal{W}_{k, \Phi} x_{\mathcal{L}(\Psi)+k-2}+\mathcal{B}_{k, \Phi}\right)
and sure, I can figure it out, but you have to agree there are some readability issues


They are not complaining about superscripts for indices, but about having a subscripts in those superscripts. Basically like x² but the ² has a subscript of its own. That is very dense and graphically hard to follow as notations go.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: