7 ms·

I pray they make a breaking change before 1.0 and make it zero based

by gct 11y ago

icholy 11y ago
Amen. As stupid as it may sound, this is the only reason I haven't gotten into it ...
- gct 11y ago
  No one understands our plight
- superbatfish 11y ago
  You're not the only one. OK, this might sound even stupider, but I feel betrayed by the fact that otherwise good, technical people would voluntarily make such a major mistake, and then defend it so vigorously in the face of so many complaints.
  - superbatfish 11y ago
    OK, clearly some Julia fans down-voted my comment, perhaps because they misunderstood it. I was trying to say something about human psychology. We can admit that it is silly, but we can't pretend that it doesn't exist. This may be a bigger deal than they realize. Programming languages are used primarily by humans, which means they must be designed with human psychology in mind. Today, Julia would have (even) more community support if not for this seemingly inconsequential decision. The fact that it seems to be succeeding anyway is largely in spite of, not because of, this design choice.
simonster 11y ago
Not two-based? https://github.com/simonster/TwoBasedIndexing.jl https://github.com/simonster/TwoBasedIndexing.jl
- Nrpf 11y ago
  Actually I'm waiting for 3 based....
  - fanf2 11y ago
    "Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration." - Stan Kelly-Bootle.
cormullion 11y ago
I doubt it will happen. Zerothly, zero-based isn't as good as 1-based indexing for mathematics and science. And firstly, nobody want to change it. https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/558 https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/558
- superbatfish 11y ago
  >zero-based isn't as good as 1-based indexing for mathematics and science [citation needed] >nobody want to change it. Love the claim here, followed by a link that reveals an ongoing controversy. True, the core developers don't want to change it, so it's not going to change. They chose to ignore the protests of many would-be users of the language.
  - ihnorton 11y ago
    It is worth noting that Fortran, MATLAB, Mathematica / Wolfram Language are all 1-indexed. These are, by far, the most influential and widely-used languages in numerical and mathematical programming for the past ~60 years.
    - superbatfish 11y ago
      Sure, we should examine the features of languages past, keep the good things, and leave out the bad things. I thought that Julia was aiming for Python's niche, i.e. good at numerical stuff, but also decent at inter-operating with other languages. Argh. We were so close to leaving 1-based indexing behind as a historical relic. But now it seems we'll be stuck with it for a while longer. I'm not saying we can do anything about it now. I just want someone to validate my frustration :-)
      - gct 11y ago
        Frustration validated friend
jkyle 11y ago
1 based indexing is very common in many math and statistics oriented languages and frameworks. Since that's the primary target audience for Julia, it makes sense they'd stick with it.

I pray they make a breaking change before 1.0 and make it zero based

by gct 11y ago

I pray they make a breaking change before 1.0 and make it zero based

icholy 11y ago

Amen. As stupid as it may sound, this is the only reason I haven't gotten into it ...

gct 11y ago
No one understands our plight
superbatfish 11y ago
You're not the only one. OK, this might sound even stupider, but I feel betrayed by the fact that otherwise good, technical people would voluntarily make such a major mistake, and then defend it so vigorously in the face of so many complaints.
- superbatfish 11y ago
  OK, clearly some Julia fans down-voted my comment, perhaps because they misunderstood it. I was trying to say something about human psychology. We can admit that it is silly, but we can't pretend that it doesn't exist. This may be a bigger deal than they realize. Programming languages are used primarily by humans, which means they must be designed with human psychology in mind. Today, Julia would have (even) more community support if not for this seemingly inconsequential decision. The fact that it seems to be succeeding anyway is largely in spite of, not because of, this design choice.

simonster 11y ago

Not two-based? https://github.com/simonster/TwoBasedIndexing.jl https://github.com/simonster/TwoBasedIndexing.jl

Nrpf 11y ago
Actually I'm waiting for 3 based....
- fanf2 11y ago
  "Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration." - Stan Kelly-Bootle.

cormullion 11y ago

I doubt it will happen. Zerothly, zero-based isn't as good as 1-based indexing for mathematics and science. And firstly, nobody want to change it. https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/558 https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/558

superbatfish 11y ago
>zero-based isn't as good as 1-based indexing for mathematics and science [citation needed] >nobody want to change it. Love the claim here, followed by a link that reveals an ongoing controversy. True, the core developers don't want to change it, so it's not going to change. They chose to ignore the protests of many would-be users of the language.
- ihnorton 11y ago
  It is worth noting that Fortran, MATLAB, Mathematica / Wolfram Language are all 1-indexed. These are, by far, the most influential and widely-used languages in numerical and mathematical programming for the past ~60 years.
  - superbatfish 11y ago
    Sure, we should examine the features of languages past, keep the good things, and leave out the bad things. I thought that Julia was aiming for Python's niche, i.e. good at numerical stuff, but also decent at inter-operating with other languages. Argh. We were so close to leaving 1-based indexing behind as a historical relic. But now it seems we'll be stuck with it for a while longer. I'm not saying we can do anything about it now. I just want someone to validate my frustration :-)
    - gct 11y ago
      Frustration validated friend

jkyle 11y ago

1 based indexing is very common in many math and statistics oriented languages and frameworks. Since that's the primary target audience for Julia, it makes sense they'd stick with it.