On 7/20/07, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu> wrote:
> > I don't know how seriously you are proposing this, but for the record,
> > I'm pretty much completely opposed to officially-blessed abbreviations.
>
> And the reason is...?
Two or more names for the same thing is a disaster.
> Do you really like the current situation, where there is no standardization
> of abbreviations? Consider that "factor" (= factorization) can be
> represented as any one of "fac" (ratfac, facsum), "fact" (factcomb,
> berlefact), or "factor". "Fact" can also mean "factorial" (factcomb,
> factlim, genfact) and "factor" (= coefficient) (numfactor).
Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. What I mean is that I want to
avoid having two or more names for the same thing.
e.g. both some_long_name and s_lname. From my point of
view we have to choose one or the other.
Whether a word which occurs in multiple names is written
the same way in each case is a separate issue. I guess it
would be a good idea to write it the same way in each case.
best
Robert