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Date: Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:00:51 -0200
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From: =?UTF-8?Q?Iruat=C3=A3_Souza?= <iru.muzgo@gmail.com>
To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net>
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Subject: Re: [9fans] Plan 9/plan9port coding conventions
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On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 7:20 PM, John Floren <john@jfloren.net> wrote:
>
>> (1) For example, P9 code tends to use variable names like "i" and "j",
>> where I would typically use self-documenting variable names like "row"
>> and "col". =C2=A0Variable names like "row" and "col" are much easier to
>> search for (i.e., with a right-click), too. =C2=A0Names like "i" and "j"
>> (which occur in many identifiers) will generate many false positives.
>
> If everyone in the world uses i and j as row/column indexes into
> arrays, aren't they self-documenting?
>
> One reason is that in FORTRAN, identifiers that began with I
> through... =C2=A0N? were automatically integers. =C2=A0Thus, I and J were=
 easy.
> There may be a good reason for that, I've heard that it came from
> quaternions but that may be false.
>
>

When you do software for physics it seems generally better if the code
has similar/analogous notation to the derivations you're dealing with.
In that case one letter variables often render a direct understanding
while more descriptive names do not.

iru