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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 trac
by 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.