Antoon Pardon wrote: > Op 2005-04-21, Steve Holden schreef <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... > >> Along the same lines, I think the REQUIREMENT that x[0] rather than > >> x[1] be the first element of list x is a mistake. At least the > >> programmer should have a choice, as in Fortran or VBA. In C starting at > >> 0 may be justified because of the connection between array subscripting > >> and pointer arithmetic, but Python is a higher-level language where > >> such considerations are less relevant. > >> > > But Pythonicity required that there should be one obvious way to do
> > something. How obvious is having two ways? > > How obvious is that lists can be any length? Do you consider it > an unbounded number of ways, that lists can be any length? > > Like users have a choice in how long they make a list, they > should have a choice where the indexes start. (And that > shouldn't be limited to 0 and 1). Suppose you could. Then what should ([3, 1, 4] indexbase 0) + ([1, 5, 9] indexbase 4) equal? > That you are forced to use zero-based structures, while the > problem space you are working on uses one-based structures > is a far bigger stumbling block where you continually have > to be aware that the indexes in your program are one off > from the indexes the problem is expressed in. Name a problem space that inherently requires arrays to be 1-based rather than 0-based. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
