Shorthand for numbered equation environment

Is there any shorthand for numbered equation environment?

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If you use a package, which only numbers the referenced equations, there is no need for a distinction between a numbered and an unnumbered equation. This is possible with mathtools. If you always want to use the normal equation shorthand (like $a + b = c$), you can use the autonum package.

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You can use a new command to start the environment and other to finish it, for example, \def\beq{}.

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You could also use \let\beq\equation and \let\eeq\endequation. –  Werner Jun 23 '12 at 23:30
I think using a lot of custom abbreviations is not good for the readability of your source code. Instead you should use a good editor which helps you with these kind of things. For example if you are a vim user, you can take a look at vim-latex, sometimes also called LaTeX-Suite. It is a great tool for writing LaTeX code and in particular, you just need to type in EEQ and it will immediatly replace it with
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