Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: a style question Message-ID: Date: 3 Oct 90 18:55:29 GMT References: <7341@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <8660@ncar.ucar.edu> <1990Sep30.220839.20183@nntp-server.caltech.edu> <1990Oct1.174625.22061@zoo.toronto.edu> <2039@excelan.COM> Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Lines: 10 In article <2039@excelan.COM> donp@novell.com (don provan) writes: > If you're only going to be typing the name three or four times, what's > the advantage keeping it a single character? Readability? Readability, to some extent. People are used to this notation from mathematics, and this provides the necessary context. If you give it a "real" name then you start to wonder what it might be used for outside the loop. I, myself, tend to use "i", "j", and so on for indices in loops, and named variables for anything that has a scope outside the loop. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com