591
why not a,b or x,y?
(lemm.ee)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
591 points (94.4% liked)
Programmer Humor
32448 readers
891 users here now
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
Rules:
- Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
- No NSFW content.
- Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
It's my understanding that i,j are conventionally used in mathematics which carried over into programming, but specifically it comes from Fortran in which all integer variables start with "I" through "N" based on said mathematical convention
Yep, this is the answer. In Fortran, all variables are assumed to be floats, unless the variable starts with I, J, K, L, M or N. I’m sure they had a good reason, but it sounds so bizarre today!