Yes, thats right. Those insufferably inscrutable blocks of rosetta code, about this esoteric subject of computer science. I really didn’t have an idea what I was getting into when I chose this major, but I’d still pick it. I just have a few beefs with computer science papers.

A bit of background first. On the first day of my research job, I was given three papers to read and research. All told, they constitute 70 pages. Yes. 70 pages. So you’d think there’d be some rather amazing, in-depth stuff there. Nope. Well, depends on your perspective.

Now, in reading them, I got to see a wide range of approaches, and an admittedly small cross-sample of writing styles. Except theres one problem.

They use one-letter variables. You know what I mean. They use things like S, to represent a function, and i, j, k, x, y, z for psuedo-code variables. FOR THE LOVE OF A GOD I DON’T BELIEVE IN, STOP DOING THIS. /rant. Seriously. Its like the researchers wrote up their papers, using full variables, then, did a search and replace… to make it harder.

Maybe it looks more impressive when your algorithm uses a series of single-letter variables. Its definitely harder to read. I don’t know why this is an accepted approach. And seemingly the only one.

Wait, I do. My even more unlucky co-worker, whom goes by the name khumba, has to work on convex equations in scilab. The source code was originally written by a student majoring in math… and minoring in GREEK. Well, thats what it looks like. Except its not just one student. But its a series of solely math students, asked to program in scilab for their professors. Every other line looks like something straight from The Daily WTF. I’ve seen it. And that, I realize, is where the computer science papers get it from. The mathematicians. When mathematicians branch out into new algebra systems, they inevitably fall into the computer science category, which then ends up inspiring the rest of the papers. Because its the “accepted” style. But its mathematicians using their daily variable calculus in code, which then seeped into the Computer Science discipline, since thats where most of the first papers came from, mathematicians. And it has been that way since.

Now, its done because everyone does it. And everyone does it, because thats the way its done. Which makes me want to hurt someone very badly.

So, if you’re going to write a computer science paper, don’t do this; I will shoot you if you do so.

(Not really. But one really should program and write code as if there will be a psychopath maintaining your code.)