Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: a style question Message-ID: <29106:Oct404:03:1090@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Date: 4 Oct 90 04:03:10 GMT References: <2039@excelan.COM> Organization: IR Lines: 22 In article bumby@math.rutgers.edu (Richard Bumby) writes: > Most mathematical > exposition would benefit from free use of words, rather than letters, > as primitive symbols. You're free to use short names, like sin, cos, or foo, without confusing anybody. But Peter's point is correct: using more than one letter for a local index hurts readability, just as it's hard to read a book in 48-point type. > The curious feature was that the loop and local declaration > of i were made into a block. This had the advantages of emphasizing > the limited scope of the index variable and putting the declaration in > the most natural (?) place, but the disadvantage of introducing an > extra level of structure into the program. I use this ``curious'' technique when I see a very strong procedural orientation within the main body of a program, but not enough to warrant separate procedures. Wtf is the disadvantage of introducing structure into a program? ---Dan