3 ms·

You might want to read this, then: http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/ http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2013/10/22/citation-needed/

mcguire 13y ago
And, once again, "And that’s the most coherent argument I can find; there are dozens of other arguments for zero-indexing involving 'natural numbers' or 'elegance'[2] or some other unresearched hippie voodoo nonsense that are either wrong or too dumb to rise to the level of wrong." I still believe this is the only time EWD's work has ever been referred to as "unresearched hippie voodoo nonsense". Is this the same Mike Hoye who hacks Zelda?[potato] [potato] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/mike-hoye-hacks-zelda-vid_n_2140509.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/mike-hoye-hacks-zel... [2] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EW...
haberman 13y ago
That article assumes that history is the most important consideration. It doesn't actually evaluate the pros/cons of 0-vs-1-based indexing at all, it just traces the story, as if the path we took to get here is more important than the content of the argument. History can inform the argument, but history does not make the argument. Observing the effects of 0-vs-1-based indexing in existing languages can give us data about the pragmatic effects of either decision. But the precise chain of cause-and-effect of decisions made in the 1960s in an environment where both the hardware and social structures around computing were radically different than they are now is really not that relevant to the question of which approach is better overall. The article is also snide and openly insulting to nearly everybody (including Dijkstra); combined with its lack of a convincing argument, this article does not deserve to be treated as a credible position piece in support of 1-based indexing.
touristtam 13y ago
Thanks. Thoroughly enjoyed that article. :)

mcguire 13y ago

And, once again, "And that’s the most coherent argument I can find; there are dozens of other arguments for zero-indexing involving 'natural numbers' or 'elegance'[2] or some other unresearched hippie voodoo nonsense that are either wrong or too dumb to rise to the level of wrong." I still believe this is the only time EWD's work has ever been referred to as "unresearched hippie voodoo nonsense". Is this the same Mike Hoye who hacks Zelda?[potato] [potato] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/mike-hoye-hacks-zelda-vid_n_2140509.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/16/mike-hoye-hacks-zel... [2] http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EW...

haberman 13y ago

That article assumes that history is the most important consideration. It doesn't actually evaluate the pros/cons of 0-vs-1-based indexing at all, it just traces the story, as if the path we took to get here is more important than the content of the argument. History can inform the argument, but history does not make the argument. Observing the effects of 0-vs-1-based indexing in existing languages can give us data about the pragmatic effects of either decision. But the precise chain of cause-and-effect of decisions made in the 1960s in an environment where both the hardware and social structures around computing were radically different than they are now is really not that relevant to the question of which approach is better overall. The article is also snide and openly insulting to nearly everybody (including Dijkstra); combined with its lack of a convincing argument, this article does not deserve to be treated as a credible position piece in support of 1-based indexing.

touristtam 13y ago

Thanks. Thoroughly enjoyed that article. :)