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> `index` is better, but it's not like I'd bash someone for using `i`. Thre's strong grounds for saying that `i` is better. At least in a lot of the code I wo

> `index` is better, but it's not like I'd bash someone for using `i`. Thre's strong grounds for saying that `i` is better. At least in a lot of the code I work with, `index` is most likely to be assumed to mean something akin to a SQL index similar - a data structure or module used for fast lookup. Whereas `i` is universally understood to be an iteration counter or a position in a sequence. That's a well-known convention that goes back for hundreds of years, and that many (if not most) of us learned before we really learned to program, by virtue of its use in math notation.

jdmichal 8y ago
That is strong grounds for saying that `i` is likely to be well understood. Which is why I would not even bring it up in a code review. (Unless there is nested looping with multiple indexes, in which case I very much want better names to help prevent mistakes.) And yes, words can have many definitions. This is where you actually do rely on context for the reader to separate. And I have zero issues with local conventions overriding global conventions. So if you really do have a lot of confusion between whether an integer means an array index or an SQL index, by all means create convention to disambiguate. (Also, while "hundreds of years" is technically accurate, it's probably not as old as you think. Euler was mid 1700's with his sigma summation notation.)