3 ms·

This looks even more natural from the programmer’s standpoint: reduction of a set of numbers by summation starts with 0, and reduction by multiplication, with 1

This looks even more natural from the programmer’s standpoint: reduction of a set of numbers by summation starts with 0, and reduction by multiplication, with 1; so, if the set is empty (has zero elements) the result is simply the starting number (0 or 1, respectively).

_0ffh 6y ago
And so in general the reduction of an empty list should always the neutral element of the operator.