
Names - jgrahamc
https://research.swtch.com/names
======
brudgers
I find the premises of the argument specious.

For a non English speaker, the character #\i is no more informative about its
function than the character #\i's ASCII representation. It has no more
semantic content than 16r69 or #151 or 105. Maybe a person with English as a
second or third language might, after several years, one day, years down the
road, epiphanize "Oh, 'i' is for "index"' in all the intervening years and for
those for whom revelation does not touch, the #\i also lacks any semantic
context.

It's not really even much of a mathematical convention. High school algebra
and calculus and trigonometry do not discuss indexing -- never mind the basic
arithmetic that is a step above the actual floor for programming as a way of
solving actual problems. #\i for 'index' shows up in computer programming
classes.

In the end, the argument has a bit of real programmers look like Kernighan and
Ritchie in terms of mental habits, educational background, and social status.
Or at least they look like the kind of people Google pays to program in Go.

[https://www.fossygirl.com/blog/2016/5/24/the-set-of-
programm...](https://www.fossygirl.com/blog/2016/5/24/the-set-of-programmers-
how-math-restricts-us)

