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From: G <g@nowhere.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Which code style do you prefer the most?
Date: 7 Mar 2025 09:28:35 GMT
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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> On 06/03/2025 15:49, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>>> On 05/03/2025 18:51, Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>> Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid> writes:
>>>>> On 05/03/2025 17:09, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>>>> On 05.03.2025 17:40, bart wrote:
>>>>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Seriously, short variable names for common things - i, j, k for loop
>>>>> counters;
>>>>
>>>> So, one might ask _why_ i, j, k instead of a, b, c?
>>>>
>>>> Answer: Fortran IMPLICIT INTEGER
>>>>
>>>
>>> Nonsense.
>>>
>>> Ask rather why Fortran picked i, j, k for integer-type index variables.
>>> Their use for that function in maths /long/ predates Fortran.
>> 
>> That doesn't mean that C programmers didn't adopt the
>> use of i,j,k from FORTRAN.
> 
> I certainly did not.  I use i, j, k in maths, then in BASIC, then in 
> Pascal, then in C.  No Fortran in sight.
> 
> /Everyone/ uses i, j, k for simple indices, because it is standard in 
> maths and is a convention that works well in just about any programming 
> language.  Fortran may have been have been one of the first high-level 
> programming languages, but there is no reason to suppose others copied 
> this convention from it.
> 
> And while my knowledge of Fortran is close to negligible, I don't 
> believe you are /required/ to use i, j or k for indices - people use 
> other letters or identifiers for loop counters and indices, just as they 
> do in most languages.  The only language I know of where you are forced 
> to use i and j is FORTH.
> 
> I'm sure that people who first programmed in Fortran, and then in C, 
> took some of their habits with them.  And there are no doubt plenty of 
> features of programming and programming languages that Fortran 
> pioneered, and other languages copied - this is not one of them.

When I was programming in FORTRAN i thought that the fact that "i" to "n"
where implicitly integer where because they where the initials of "Integer
Number", probably a coincidence... but useful to remember it.
And that was before I learned that the first instruction in any FORTRAN
program has to be "IMPLICIT NONE", it took almost a day to debug a program
when I mistakenly wrote "I0UT" instead of "IOUT" using a terminal where "O"
and "0" where almost identical, the FORTRAN compiler happily accepted it,the
program not so much.

G