From: Joe Cheng <code@...>
Date: 2004-10-05T13:09:52+09:00
Subject: Re: [RCR] New [] Semantics

Bill Atkins wrote:
> Also, I don't know what happened with the earlier mention about the
> confusion between .. / ... but I'm a supporter of getting rid of '...'
> and just making .. inclusive.  Exclusive ranges can be represented
> with 0..(n + 1) if necessary.  I don't know if this is appropriate for
> an RCR.

I find it surprising that several people have expressed so much aversion 
to '...' that they would actually favor removing it from the language. 
In all earnestness, why don't you just forget it exists?

While you may find inclusive ranges less confusing than exclusive 
ranges, for some people (including me and, apparently[1], Ara), 
exclusive ranges are more useful and intuitive.

Using exclusive ranges eliminates error-prone "n+1" calculations.  As a 
case in point, you said "0..(n + 1)" but I think you actually meant 
"0..(n - 1)".  This may have just been a typo on your part, but I 
personally make a lot of mistakes of this kind when I have to use 
inclusive ranges, especially when converting from start/end indexes to 
offset/length.

[1]http://groups-beta.google.com/group/comp.lang.ruby/msg/a6cbf0ee261fc9b4