4 ms·

In the business domain one is often counting and tracking explicit things: widgets, contracts, customers, complaints, pizzas, etc. When counting, you almost alw

by tabtab 7y ago

In the business domain one is often counting and tracking explicit things: widgets, contracts, customers, complaints, pizzas, etc. When counting, you almost always start with 1. "1" fits the domain more naturally, and if you deviate, you'll likely spend code converting between the end-user's view and the code's view. The translation layer creates risk of errors and more code. Maybe weather forecasting or space probe orbit calculation is different, but 1 better fits biz. Dijkstra was not (primarily) a business domain coder. (Smarter languages, like Pascal, allow you to define the range, although I'm not sure if it has dynamic upper ranges.)

tomjakubowski 7y ago
I think you'd still start counting those things from 0, because it's a convenient and natural way to express that you don't have complaints, widgets or pizzas. Or, I suppose, you could start counting at 1, but use an optional type and use None for that case. But that makes doing arithmetic on those numbers ("widgets per pizza") harder than if you'd just used 0 to begin with.
- tabtab 7y ago
  I think you are mixing up indexing and default value setting. They are roughly related, but only roughly.
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    Hum, no. He is using a generalized version of counting that works for 0 items too. A computer should start counting from 0, there's no reason to special case the empty set.
    - mjevans 7y ago
      Humans should too for the same reason. Lets consider a measuring tool for fluids which is based on volume. What is a useful range for the index on the side that measures the currently non-air capacity? Many such devices, E.G. a measuring cup I've got at home in the kitchen, use a series of tick marks within a bounded scale of accuracy range ] with marks on both the top (of course) and also the bottom (it looks nice). While 0 isn't expressly labeled on many scales, it is part of the inclusive range by implicit nature. Thus as you point out the case of 0 units, and 'empty set' are one and the same in this real world example.
      - tabtab 7y ago
        I haven't done enough "fluid" applications to give domain-related suggestions. That's not really an integer "count". I'm only saying it doesn't fit well in typical business applications as I see them. Each domain is different. Many of our existing conventions derived from military, science, and academic applications. Business applications came along later, emphasizing discrete counting and categorizing things along the lines of set theory, such as in the set or not in the set, not half in. (Money has decimals, but you don't typically increment through it with indexes.) (Although COBOL was published around 1960, it took roughly 5 years for computers to get powerful enough to make it practical and widespread. The earliest COBOL compilers were dog-slow resource hogs relative to the hardware of the day.)
      - chupasaurus 7y ago
        You forgot to explicitly mention that bottom mark on your measurement cup is indeed 0, and without it you could measure "at least this volume of fluid".
        tabtab 7y ago
        That doesn't change anything that I see. Indexes and counters are usually not used for "continuous" metrics such as liquid quantities. And again, the biz domain typically does not count fractional quantities, at least not in an indexed way. It's not a practical problem for most coding. If you disagree, can you demonstrate a problem caused by indexing arrays starting at one in a typical code situation/scenario?
    - lopmotr 7y ago
      Why would you need any special case? If 1 means there is 1 item then you can still use 0 to mean there are 0 items. The 1-based counting would be to index or label them like item 1, item 2, item 3, ... which is quite natural to humans. If you had zero items, you'd express that by your list being empty, not by having a number 0 somewhere. It's not a special case.
- physicles 7y ago
  There are two separate concepts here: counting (how many things do I have) vs numbering/indexing (which one in a sequence am I talking about). If I have five pizzas, would anyone argue that the variable storing that fact should have a value of 0x0004? On the other hand, if there’s a stack of five pizzas, they’re either numbered 0..4 or 1..5 depending on your religion.
  - tabtab 7y ago
    So coding philosophy is tied to sex, politics, and religion? We're in trouble.
fctorial 7y ago
Even in business domain apps interfacing with humans is a miniscule fraction of the work.
- tabtab 7y ago
  I find the opposite. UI issues dominate too much since The Web murdered client-server stacks. Client-server was like parking a passenger car: you aim the front wheels where you went to go, and then you are there. Web stacks are like driving an 18-wheel truck: you have to plan in advance your multi-point swings and move carefully and slowly because rework is expensive.
Yizahi 7y ago
I concur, because I observe this exact problem for years now. I work for a company producing modular hardware for decades. Until like 5-10 years ago all countable stuff was counted from 1 as is only logical. Processing blades, interface ports, chassis, internal modules of same type, logical elements (sessions, channels etc.). And then on seventh day devil came by :) . The biggest customer along with several other wrote a new revision of standard we are using and there everything is 0 based. And now we are in hell. Yes, it is mostly contained but even after years of developments of new product, years in production sometimes we still find bugs around 0 based numbering. There are multiple places where 0-based is mixed with 1-based or just used incorrectly. And talking to humans about hardware become much more error prone and inefficient - "please connect card one, port one to the switch" - first as in 0 or 1? Should I specify it this time explicitly? But he probably knows what I mean. Or maybe not? And if he is wrong I will waste another day waiting to change wiring again. Screw it, I'll tell him explicitly. Every goddamn time. All of this because some arrogant programmers (or ex-programmers) think that they know better than everyone else and that changing legacy and/or logically correct conventions is good because of their religious beliefs that "0-based is better for everyone and every task".
- tabtab 7y ago
  Re: All of this because some arrogant programmers (or ex-programmers) think that they know better than everyone else ... It could be they lack real-world experience or work in "esoteric" domains. Theorem proving is a different animal than making Boss Bob's billing summary reports come out right.

by tabtab 7y ago

tomjakubowski 7y ago

I think you'd still start counting those things from 0, because it's a convenient and natural way to express that you don't have complaints, widgets or pizzas. Or, I suppose, you could start counting at 1, but use an optional type and use None for that case. But that makes doing arithmetic on those numbers ("widgets per pizza") harder than if you'd just used 0 to begin with.

tabtab 7y ago
I think you are mixing up indexing and default value setting. They are roughly related, but only roughly.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  Hum, no. He is using a generalized version of counting that works for 0 items too. A computer should start counting from 0, there's no reason to special case the empty set.
  - mjevans 7y ago
    Humans should too for the same reason. Lets consider a measuring tool for fluids which is based on volume. What is a useful range for the index on the side that measures the currently non-air capacity? Many such devices, E.G. a measuring cup I've got at home in the kitchen, use a series of tick marks within a bounded scale of accuracy range ] with marks on both the top (of course) and also the bottom (it looks nice). While 0 isn't expressly labeled on many scales, it is part of the inclusive range by implicit nature. Thus as you point out the case of 0 units, and 'empty set' are one and the same in this real world example.
    - tabtab 7y ago
      I haven't done enough "fluid" applications to give domain-related suggestions. That's not really an integer "count". I'm only saying it doesn't fit well in typical business applications as I see them. Each domain is different. Many of our existing conventions derived from military, science, and academic applications. Business applications came along later, emphasizing discrete counting and categorizing things along the lines of set theory, such as in the set or not in the set, not half in. (Money has decimals, but you don't typically increment through it with indexes.) (Although COBOL was published around 1960, it took roughly 5 years for computers to get powerful enough to make it practical and widespread. The earliest COBOL compilers were dog-slow resource hogs relative to the hardware of the day.)
    - chupasaurus 7y ago
      You forgot to explicitly mention that bottom mark on your measurement cup is indeed 0, and without it you could measure "at least this volume of fluid".
      - tabtab 7y ago
        That doesn't change anything that I see. Indexes and counters are usually not used for "continuous" metrics such as liquid quantities. And again, the biz domain typically does not count fractional quantities, at least not in an indexed way. It's not a practical problem for most coding. If you disagree, can you demonstrate a problem caused by indexing arrays starting at one in a typical code situation/scenario?
  - lopmotr 7y ago
    Why would you need any special case? If 1 means there is 1 item then you can still use 0 to mean there are 0 items. The 1-based counting would be to index or label them like item 1, item 2, item 3, ... which is quite natural to humans. If you had zero items, you'd express that by your list being empty, not by having a number 0 somewhere. It's not a special case.
physicles 7y ago
There are two separate concepts here: counting (how many things do I have) vs numbering/indexing (which one in a sequence am I talking about). If I have five pizzas, would anyone argue that the variable storing that fact should have a value of 0x0004? On the other hand, if there’s a stack of five pizzas, they’re either numbered 0..4 or 1..5 depending on your religion.
- tabtab 7y ago
  So coding philosophy is tied to sex, politics, and religion? We're in trouble.

fctorial 7y ago

Even in business domain apps interfacing with humans is a miniscule fraction of the work.

tabtab 7y ago
I find the opposite. UI issues dominate too much since The Web murdered client-server stacks. Client-server was like parking a passenger car: you aim the front wheels where you went to go, and then you are there. Web stacks are like driving an 18-wheel truck: you have to plan in advance your multi-point swings and move carefully and slowly because rework is expensive.

Yizahi 7y ago

I concur, because I observe this exact problem for years now. I work for a company producing modular hardware for decades. Until like 5-10 years ago all countable stuff was counted from 1 as is only logical. Processing blades, interface ports, chassis, internal modules of same type, logical elements (sessions, channels etc.). And then on seventh day devil came by :) . The biggest customer along with several other wrote a new revision of standard we are using and there everything is 0 based. And now we are in hell. Yes, it is mostly contained but even after years of developments of new product, years in production sometimes we still find bugs around 0 based numbering. There are multiple places where 0-based is mixed with 1-based or just used incorrectly. And talking to humans about hardware become much more error prone and inefficient - "please connect card one, port one to the switch" - first as in 0 or 1? Should I specify it this time explicitly? But he probably knows what I mean. Or maybe not? And if he is wrong I will waste another day waiting to change wiring again. Screw it, I'll tell him explicitly. Every goddamn time. All of this because some arrogant programmers (or ex-programmers) think that they know better than everyone else and that changing legacy and/or logically correct conventions is good because of their religious beliefs that "0-based is better for everyone and every task".

tabtab 7y ago
Re: All of this because some arrogant programmers (or ex-programmers) think that they know better than everyone else ... It could be they lack real-world experience or work in "esoteric" domains. Theorem proving is a different animal than making Boss Bob's billing summary reports come out right.