As the joke goes
Programmer : chooses her variables always different, with a name as explicit as possible
Mathematician : chooses her variables from a handful of greek letters
... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty. So everyone reading it understands what is going on.
Unfortunately, it doesn't generalize across specialties.
By comparison, the programmer chooses names explicitly based her own understanding and modeling of the problem, which may confuse others.
both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.
> ... from a handful of greek letters that usually already have agreed upon meaning or connotation within her subspecialty
I think you mean sub-sub-sub-subspecialty. I don't often read mathematics papers but when I do, it's infuriating how people think that [squiggle] has a universally understood meaning when in actual fact there are only a handful of people in the world (most of whom probably work in the same building as the author) who use [squiggle] to mean that.
No, I mean sub-speciality. At least, my experience is nothing like you describe. For the most part, the people who are likely to attend each others conference talks agree on notation. They may, however, disagree with the people down the hall.
Bear in mind, though, the papers are written for that same group. For good or for ill.
