In English, the letters 'i' and 'j' are just skinny little characters that barely make an impact. But in programming? Those loop counters bench press your entire codebase.
Nothing quite like watching your nested for loops with i,j variables crush through 10,000 iterations without breaking a sweat. Those humble little variables carry the weight of algorithms that would make mere mortals collapse.
Seven years into my career and I'm still naming my loop counters i,j,k like it's some sacred tradition passed down from the elders of computer science.