<p>I think if I were writing Mathematica code to illustrate a statistical point for readers who probably aren't familiar with Mathematica, I shouldn't want to use Greek letters. On their own, they're only a small step towards mathematical notation, &amp; while it would be nice to be able to write <span class="math-container">$\sigma_1^2$</span> rather than <code>sigma1^2</code>, it feels to me as if <code>σ1^2</code> is neither fish nor fowl.</p>
<p>A less subjective concern is that not all readers will have the necessary fonts installed on their system to render the Unicode characters properly, or at all. For example, on my 'phone I see a script <em>a</em> rather than <span class="math-container">$\alpha$</span>, &amp; a 'white square' rather than <span class="math-container">$\varphi$</span>.</p>
