5 ms·
In Europe, 0-based indexing is used for describing the floor number, e.g the first floor is one floor above ground level. Americans may find this unnatural, but
by dimes 6y ago
In Europe, 0-based indexing is used for describing the floor number, e.g the first floor is one floor above ground level. Americans may find this unnatural, but it’s perfectly normal to Europeans because they’ve grown used to the convention. It’s the same for programming languages. The vast majority of programmers have gotten used to a specific convention and it will probably stay that way until there is a compelling reason to change.
- physicsguy 6y agoMakes sense when you consider -1 as a basement ;)
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoYeah, as an American I think Europe got this one right.
- BenFrantzDale 6y agoI’ve seen elevators labeled that way!
- Tijdreiziger 6y agoI've not seen many elevators in Europe that aren't labeled that way.
- cwmma 6y agoConversely, ancient Romans used 1 based indexes for counting time, i.e. tomorrow is two days away which feels super weird to us but shows that all of these things can go either way.
- lemmonii 6y agoThis is not the case everywhere in Europe such as in Norway and Iceland where the 1st floor is generally considered to be the ground floor. It seems to be ambiguous in Sweden.
- spacemanmatt 6y agoAmericans may recognize the term "ground zero" more directly from domestic sources.
- ksec 6y agoThat is a great analogy. Thank You. Finally understand why 0-based indexing is so natural to certain type of people. Turns out there is a Wiki entry [1] on it [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storey
- caskstrength 6y agoJFYI, xUSSR Eastern European countries count floors from 1.