What's your favorite 1 character length variable name?

[dgodon@mastodon.online]

@catsalad let x = x

[jenshannemann@mastodon.online]

@catsalad z only at 1%? Are really so few people regularly dealing with complex numbers? Hard to believe.

[zedaardv@mastodon.world]

@catsalad I catch myself doing defaults, like x,i, n. then change to q, for example, to keep it fresh, and confuse my future self.

[swordlace@www.librepunk.club]

@catsalad I specifically chose zsh for my home machine so I could use emoji for variable and function names lol

https://gist.github.com/adaswordlace/d09c7bbd8000750fcce4e9f943e55eca

[catsalad@infosec.exchange]

@swordlace
Beautiful!

[cr0w@infosec.exchange]

@swordlace @catsalad That's some @kajer type chaos there and I love it.

[catsalad@infosec.exchange]

@cR0w @swordlace *runs away before @kajer arrives*

[lp0_on_fire@social.linux.pizza]

@catsalad, what, no n or f? Both very convenient on a ZX Spectrum or ZX81 due to where FOR and NEXT are.

[astifter@mastodon.astifter.com]

@catsalad Cudos to whoever actually uses 𒈙.

[placebo@mastodon.ie]

@catsalad n is one of them

[nuclearoatmeal@beige.party]

@catsalad

Damnit. There was no k or q.

[hcf@infosec.exchange]

On @catsalad prompt I talked to an LLM and #TIL:

# Good
max_temperature = 30

# Risky (though valid in Python)
️_max = 30

Now I want to try it when I get to a console

[darthnull@infosec.exchange]

@petealexharris @catsalad Especially if the next nested loops are j and then k.

I wonder how many people just use i because it's what they've seen, and have no idea of where it came from...

(IIRC, weren't i, j, k (and maybe l?) specially treated by the FORTRAN compiler to specific data types for speed? It's been a looong time...)

[linuxandyarn@hachyderm.io]

@catsalad For loops in my shell one-liners use A for IP addresses, D for directories, F for files, H for hostnames, N for numbers, and U for users. And yes, I capitalize them because one-character variables should call attention to the fact that they're temporary and easy to lose.

[linuxandyarn@hachyderm.io]

@dgodon @catsalad paging @laurieandersonlyricbot2

[placebo@mastodon.ie]

@BarneyDellar @catsalad totally understandable

[elysemgrasso@wandering.shop]

@darthnull @petealexharris @catsalad i through m were integers, so useful for counters and array indexes

[dgodon@mastodon.online]

@linuxandyarn @catsalad @laurieandersonlyricbot2 https://mastodon.social/@laurieandersonlyricbot2/11645770166764335sonlyricbot2@mastodon.social https://mastodon.social/@laurieandersonlyricbot2/116457701667643358

[darthnull@infosec.exchange]

@petealexharris @ElyseMGrasso @catsalad "misremembered." heh. At this point, the fact that I remember anything at all about this bit of programming lore, I consider a victory.

(integrating assembly with FORTRAN on a Unisys mainframe was one of my favorite weird assignments in college...)

[australopithecus@mastodon.social]

@catsalad
𓂺
(U+130BA, from the Egyptian hieroglyphs block)