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why not a,b or x,y? (lemm.ee)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/programmerhumor@lemmy.ml
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[–] 11 points 3 years ago (2 children)

I find it hard to read when these are together:

  • i, j, l
  • n, m, u, v, w

From all the possible character combinations, somehow the lookalike combinations are among the most popular. Yes, probably comes from math. I hated it even more when my math prof's i and j on the board were indistinguishable.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago

    When the practice started, most (if not all) programming languages used capital letters. IIRC the computers that ran early FORTRAN (which is where the I,J,K, etc. convention comes from) didn't even support lower case letters.

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