Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!sci34hub!sci!dc
From: dc@sci.UUCP (D. C. Sessions)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: About the variable 'I' (was Re: long names (was Readability of Ada))
Message-ID: <973@mgt3.sci.UUCP>
Date: 29 Apr 91 17:09:20 GMT
References: <3878@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP> <jls.672366979@rutabaga> <12394@dog.ee.lbl.gov> <1991Apr26.034205.27308@netcom.COM>
Reply-To: dc@mgt3.sci.com (D. C. Sessions)
Organization: SCI Technology, Inc., Huntsville, Al.
Lines: 20

In article <1991Apr26.034205.27308@netcom.COM> mrs@netcom.COM (Morgan Schweers) writes:
>Greetings,
>    Can someone confirm (preferably in a post, so my MBX doesn't flood)
>the truth/falsity of FORTRAN being the starter of 'I' as a generic loop
>variable?

  You have it backwards.  Mathematicians have used 'i', 'j', 'k', etc.
  for 'index' expressions since Newton (or so).  I have seen some *old*
  math texts from before Von Neuman was a freshman, and summations 
  across a range indexed by 'i' are all over the place.

  FORTRAN just adopted the prevailing mathematical notation.  Recall that
  In The Beginning (tm) almost all integer arithmetic was for array
  indexing and similar housekeeping, and the default of 'i'..'n' makes
  sense.
-- 
| The above opinions may not be original, but they are mine and mine alone. |
|            "While it may not be for you to complete the task,             |
|                 neither are you free to refrain from it."                 |
+-=-=-    (I wish this _was_ original!)        D. C. Sessions          -=-=-+