I think the real problem is the terse coding style. Why does the for loop always use "i"?

When I write code, I don't use "i" or other single-letter variable names. I write long names, like "currentItem", "currentMessage", "currentUser", etc. If I reference an object, I usually name it "thisItem", "thisMessage", "thisUser".

Compilers shrink executables, so it's not a size issue. I don't know why people want code to be shorter; I prefer it to be easy to read and debug.