5 ms·

Well, yeah, I didn't want to go that deep into it, of course there is a reason why they are linked. But none that links them inherently, which is what I wrote.

Well, yeah, I didn't want to go that deep into it, of course there is a reason why they are linked. But none that links them inherently, which is what I wrote. And the accident really simply is that "zero" wasn't an accepted concept yet when ordinal numbers were invented, which led to the first ordinal number being called "first" and not "zeroth". Meanwhile, humanity largely has accepted zero as a useful and coherent concept, but just didn't bother to update the names of ordinals to fit better with that, which is where the confusion comes from.

cousin_it 10y ago
I think this hits the nail on the head. Counting things from 0 instead of 1 would be nice in the real world too, not just in programming. For example, in a base 10 system, you could have exactly 10 pigs with single-digit numbers painted on their sides. That makes much more sense than the current system, where the last pig requires a two-digit number for some reason. Tonight I'll go to bed happy in the knowledge that programming isn't wrong, it's the world that is buggy.
- theoh 10y ago
  Maybe you are being sarcastic, but surely the history and etymology of 0 really makes it ineligible to be used to name the first ordinal. How can the "empty" placeholder value represent the presence of an item? It's just even more confusing than the existing situation.
  - cousin_it 10y ago
    The change is a bit mind-blowing, but in the end I really think it could work. Consider this: "The first year of the third millennium begins at 2001/01/01 00:00:00" Wouldn't this make much more sense: "The zeroth year of the second millennium begins at 2000/00/00 00:00:00"
    - rogual 10y ago
      Not to mention it would eliminate the always-confusing "17th century == 1600s" thing.
      - cousin_it 10y ago
        Yeah. I expanded this to its own post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192826
jstimpfle 10y ago
So many words, of vague meaning (e.g. "inherently"), and confusing levels of quoting (e.g. first vs "first"). What's wrong with just saying "Unfortunately we don't start with 'zeroth'"? Can't discover more meaning in these paragraphs.

cousin_it 10y ago

I think this hits the nail on the head. Counting things from 0 instead of 1 would be nice in the real world too, not just in programming. For example, in a base 10 system, you could have exactly 10 pigs with single-digit numbers painted on their sides. That makes much more sense than the current system, where the last pig requires a two-digit number for some reason. Tonight I'll go to bed happy in the knowledge that programming isn't wrong, it's the world that is buggy.

theoh 10y ago
Maybe you are being sarcastic, but surely the history and etymology of 0 really makes it ineligible to be used to name the first ordinal. How can the "empty" placeholder value represent the presence of an item? It's just even more confusing than the existing situation.
- cousin_it 10y ago
  The change is a bit mind-blowing, but in the end I really think it could work. Consider this: "The first year of the third millennium begins at 2001/01/01 00:00:00" Wouldn't this make much more sense: "The zeroth year of the second millennium begins at 2000/00/00 00:00:00"
  - rogual 10y ago
    Not to mention it would eliminate the always-confusing "17th century == 1600s" thing.
    - cousin_it 10y ago
      Yeah. I expanded this to its own post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192826 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13192826

jstimpfle 10y ago

So many words, of vague meaning (e.g. "inherently"), and confusing levels of quoting (e.g. first vs "first"). What's wrong with just saying "Unfortunately we don't start with 'zeroth'"? Can't discover more meaning in these paragraphs.