There is nothing less expressive about 1-based counting, it is only... different. Empty ranges are usually marked with 0 or empty index. Negative indices tend t

There is nothing less expressive about 1-based counting, it is only... different. Empty ranges are usually marked with 0 or empty index. Negative indices tend to mean "get everything except those" instead of "count them from tail". Also in 1-based languages element x,y is usually just A[x,y].