Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!netcomsv!doug
From: doug@netcom.COM (Doug Merritt)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: About the variable 'I' (was Re: long names (was Readability of Ada))
Message-ID: <1991May22.170305.5617@netcom.COM>
Date: 22 May 91 17:03:05 GMT
References: <1991Apr26.034205.27308@netcom.COM> <1991May06.205831.7025@wimsey.bc.ca> <5758@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au>
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In article <5758@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
>In article <1991May06.205831.7025@wimsey.bc.ca>, atekant@wimsey.bc.ca (Argun Tekant) writes:
>> But there was a good reason for FORTRAN to use I & onwards for interegers
>> which has nothing to do with mathematics. [ machine-specific guesses
>> deleted...]
>
>The mnemonic I was taught _may_ have something to do with it:
>look at the first two letters of the word "INteger".

Fortran a-h is real and i,j,k (at least) are integer because of long
mathematical practice. I,j,k are universally used as subscripts and
therefore integer, a,b,c,etc are real and therefore floating point.

This motivation is well known, there's no need to speculate.

(Sorry if this repeats a now-expired article.)
	Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt	doug@netcom.com		apple!netcom!doug