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while true: !!!

Greg Jorgensen gregj at pobox.com
Wed Dec 13 02:46:49 EST 2000 
"Richard Brodie" <R.Brodie at rl.ac.uk> wrote:

> We've been here before: the FORTRAN notation derives from the mathematical
> convention of using i,j,k (more rarely l,m,n) as vector indices. It's no
more an
> invention of FORTRAN than using x,y,z for axes.

Thanks, I knew that. That's why I didn't claim that FORTRAN's i,j,k
convention was a FORTRAN invention, only that it is an idiom of FORTRAN that
has migrated to languages that don't implicit type variables by the first
letter of their name. It makes sense that FORTRAN's idioms came from
mathematics, but my point is that those idioms are still common in languages
that are explicitly typed, and in programs that have nothing to do with
mathematics.

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an
understanding."
    -- Samuel Johnson

--
Greg Jorgensen
Deschooling Society
Portland, Oregon, USA
gregj at pobox.com
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