a style question

[Evan Marshall Manning]

henry at zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:

>>In what way is "ix" superior to "i"? 

dhesi%cirrusl at oliveb.ATC.olivetti.com (Rahul Dhesi) writes:

>Not only is "ix" not superior to "i", but it is in fact much
>inferior.  Anybody with a mathematical (or FORTAN ;-) background, upon
>seeing "i", will immediately and subconsciously react, "Ah!  We're
>acting on the i-th element in a series!".  But when I see "ix", I say
>to myself, "ix??  What's ix??".

And this is where the combination of a background in FORTRA[N|SH] and
variables named "i" will bite you.  In C it's the (i+1)th element in
the series.  Perhaps semi-reformed FORTRAN programmers need to avoid
"i" more than anyone else. :-)

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