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Silly article. Most of its points are actually arguments against JavaScript's type system and semantics, not zero indexing per se. (Consider how would they appl
by pwdisswordfish2 7y ago
Silly article. Most of its points are actually arguments against JavaScript's type system and semantics, not zero indexing per se. (Consider how would they apply if we used letters for indexing, where there's no longer a superficially appealing zero value to special-case: ‘We should use B-based indexing, because A is a falsey value in JavaScript! Also, now we can use A to denote missing elements!’.) Others are empty appeals to vaguely defined ‘mathematics’ that ultimately boil down to historical legacy.
It is true that most matrix theorems are formulated with 1-based indices. But mathematical notation is full of unfortunate historical accidents (like defining π to be half the circumference of the unit circle), so one should be cautious when drawing inspiration from it. And for what it's worth, set theorists start ordinal numbers from zero, and each ordinal a half-open interval of numbers which precede it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number#Von_Neumann_definition_of_ordinals https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number#Von_Neumann_d...