3 ms·
Pet peeve: We do lists with ordinal numbers [1], not natural ones. When you go to see what is the greatest movie of all time do you look to see which one is fi
by loewenskind 16y ago
Pet peeve: We do lists with ordinal numbers [1], not natural ones. When you go to see what is the greatest movie of all time do you look to see which one is first or which one is "zeroth"? Anyone who picked the latter may have brain damage.
[1] http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvocabulary/a/ordinal.htm http://spanish.about.com/od/spanishvocabulary/a/ordinal.htm
- Tiomaidh 16y agoStarting at 0 makes people feel leet since they can pretend they're programming--since arrays/lists start at 0.
- callmeed 16y agoYeah, that was it ... I wanted to feel leet and impress everyone here on HN. I am a rockstar programmer. You nailed it.
- roryokane 16y agoI interpreted the 0 as meaning “so trivial as to perhaps not be worth it, and therefore optional” – you can start at item 1 if you want. Or perhaps it meant “too obvious to mention, but mentioning it just in case”.
- callmeed 16y agoTo be totally honest, I added hello world last and I was just too lazy to edit all the other numbers :)
- SkyMarshal 16y agoAnd besides, you have to save "zeroth" for something transcendental or meta, not trivial, as in the Laws of Robotics.