> (1) For example, P9 code tends to use variable names like "i" and "j", > where I would typically use self-documenting variable names like "row" > and "col". Variable names like "row" and "col" are much easier to > search for (i.e., with a right-click), too. Names like "i" and "j" > (which occur in many identifiers) will generate many false positives.
If everyone in the world uses i and j as row/column indexes into arrays, aren't they self-documenting? One reason is that in FORTRAN, identifiers that began with I through... N? were automatically integers. Thus, I and J were easy. There may be a good reason for that, I've heard that it came from quaternions but that may be false. John