From: Steven Lumos <steven@...>
Date: 2007-07-19T09:10:22+09:00
Subject: Re: The Pebble in the Ruby Shoe

SonOfLilit <sonoflilit@gmail.com> writes:
> I disagree. Zero based arrays are natural to a mathematician, and
> programmers tend to be mathematicians.

No! This is a systematic lie used to defend a convention that was
adopted for purely practical reasons.  It's like claiming that
segmented memory is more natural to mathematicians.  Mathematicians
and even Computer Scientists consistently use 1, e.g.

  x_1, x_2, ..., x_n

The 0 ("not") subscript--when used--usually shows up in situations not
really analogous to arrays, in order to INCREASE synchronization with
units, instead of decreasing it as 0-based arrays do (t_0 as the
instant of starting, t_1 the instant of 1 time unit from t_0, etc.)

Similarly, a[0] is NOT the "zeroth" ("Coming next in a series before
the one conventionally regarded as the first") element!

> It's humanity that has the wrong clue. I hate the problems that
> one-based counting creates. Anywhere, not just in arrays.
>
> Aur

There are always trade-offs.

It's certainly the case that the decision is made for Ruby.  It's a
good and safe decision supported by decades of computing convention
and habit, if not mathematical convention.

(Configurable array indexing is an abomination created by people who
must have thought that only a single author and the machine have any
business reading a program.)

Steve

P.S. I'm talking about U.S. English speaking mathematicians, since
that's my only direct experience.

P.P.S. I must say, you've either worked with a much higher class of
programmers, or lower class of mathematicians than I have though.