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I like how this list is zero-indexed.
by softwarefounder 9y ago
I like how this list is zero-indexed.
- ada1981 9y agoI like that you like that.
- ada1981 9y agoDownvoted for expressing how I feel!
- santoshalper 9y agoWe're not animals.
- celticninja 9y agoIt is a standard way of doing things on HN and until I became a software developer I really didn't understand why.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- callmeed 9y agolooking at you, Lua ...
- haburka 9y agoLiking zero indexed lists is such a dumb programmer meme. Lists are for humans to read and therefore should use the natural numbers, which start at one. Arrays are zero indexed because the first item of the array starts with zero offset.
- zwerdlds 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey#Numbering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey#Numbering
- powercf 9y ago> Lists are for humans to read and therefore should use the natural numbers, which start at one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms#Formulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms#Formulation To address the content of your post: I agree, but humans aren't purely logical devices created by Dr. Noonien Soong, and we do enjoy playing with things and joking about.
- pwdisswordfish 9y agoPeano axioms can just as well be formulated with 1 as the smallest natural number, with little consequence as to the expressiveness of the resulting theory. Not that there aren't mathematical reasons to start counting with zero, but this isn't a very strong one, at least not without further elaboration.
- femto113 9y agoEver been in an elevator in Europe?
- curun1r 9y agoAnd it's because of dumb non-programmers that we have 12am immediately following 11pm. If we were to, instead, recognize the beginning/middle of the day as 0, the am/pm transitions would be sensible. Starting at 0 is almost always correct, teaching people to start counting at 1 isn't. Why do we continually come up with convoluted workarounds simply because we educate children incorrectly?
- simonebrunozzi 9y agoMe too! I didn't notice until you mentioned, but then I immediately thought "that's it!". :)
- dang 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993370 and marked it off-topic.