On Aug 23, 7:46 pm, alex23 wrote:
> "Russ P." wrote:
> > However, I've switched from Python to
> > Scala, so I really don't care.
>
> Really? Your endless whining in this thread would seem to indicate
> otherwise.
Yes, I guess I care some, but not much. I still use Python for some
things, and I
"Russ P." wrote:
> However, I've switched from Python to
> Scala, so I really don't care.
Really? Your endless whining in this thread would seem to indicate
otherwise.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
On Aug 22, 12:47 am, Chris Rebert wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Russ P. wrote:
> > On Aug 21, 1:33 am, Steven D'Aprano > cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> >> On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:01:42 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> >> > Most programmers probably never use vectors and matrices, so they don't
On 2010-08-21, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> There is room in the world for programming languages aimed at
> non- programmers (although HC is an extreme case), but not all
> languages should prefer the intuition of non-programmers over
> other values.
Extremer: Inform 7.
--
Neil Cerutti
--
http://m
On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 12:23 AM, Russ P. wrote:
> On Aug 21, 1:33 am, Steven D'Aprano cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:01:42 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
>> > Most programmers probably never use vectors and matrices, so they don't
>> > care about the inconsistency with standard math
On Aug 21, 1:33 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:01:42 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> > Most programmers probably never use vectors and matrices, so they don't
> > care about the inconsistency with standard mathematical notation.
>
> Perhaps you should ask the numpy programmers what th
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 09:21:25 +0200, Kai Borgolte wrote:
> Sorry about my previous posting with wrong references, this one should
> be better.
>
> Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>
>>A simple example: Using zero-based indexing, suppose you want to indent
>>the string "spam" so it starts at column 4. How m
On Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:01:42 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> Most programmers probably never use vectors and matrices, so they don't
> care about the inconsistency with standard mathematical notation.
Perhaps you should ask the numpy programmers what they think about that.
Vectors and matrices are just
Russ P. wrote:
It all boils down to personal preference, but I just find it strange
that we would not try to make programming as consistent as possible
with notational conventions in the literature.
It doesn't matter how much mathematical convention you quote,
your assertion that 1-based indexi
Martin Braun wrote:
Another thing worth mentioning (I guess here is a good a place as any
other) is the fact that programming and mathematics are still pretty
different things, despite how much we programmers would like to think
ourselves as some kind of mathematician.
Although when it comes
J.B. Brown wrote:
Then users of my class (mainly my research lab coworkers) could
specify whichever behavior they wanted.
In terms of providing readable code and removing beginning programmer
confusion,
But having some arrays indexed from 0 and others from 1 can
be a recipe for confusion in i
Robert Kern wrote:
On 8/16/10 9:29 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
In article,
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
In message, Roy Smith wrote:
5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
How many elements in that array?
c) neither of the above. More specifically, 13,001 (if I counted
correctly).
13000, a
Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:33:51 +1200, Gregory Ewing wrote:
Ian Kelly wrote:
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
real sample[-500:750];
Ugh, no. The ability to change the minimum index is evil.
Not always; it can have its uses, particul
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
That is not some kind of ordinal numbering of the terms, that is the power
of the variable involved.
It's both. Convention is to make the power and the index
of the coefficent the same, because it would be pointlessly
confusing to do anything else.
--
Greg
--
http:/
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 12:31 PM, Russ P. wrote:
> On Aug 20, 11:19 am, geremy condra wrote:
>
>> Not sure what you read, but for me (mostly number theory, numerical
>> analysis, and abstract algebra) zero-based indexing is quite common.
>
> My background is in aerospace control engineering. I am
On Aug 20, 11:19 am, geremy condra wrote:
> Not sure what you read, but for me (mostly number theory, numerical
> analysis, and abstract algebra) zero-based indexing is quite common.
My background is in aerospace control engineering. I am certainly not
familiar with the literature in pure mathem
On Fri, Aug 20, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Russ P. wrote:
> On Aug 20, 1:23 am, Martin Braun wrote:
>
>> I find this thread extremely interesting, but what surprised me that
>> everyone seems to agree that mathematics is 1-based, but we Pythoneers
>> should stick to zero-based. I disagree. To make sure I'
On Aug 20, 1:23 am, Martin Braun wrote:
> I find this thread extremely interesting, but what surprised me that
> everyone seems to agree that mathematics is 1-based, but we Pythoneers
> should stick to zero-based. I disagree. To make sure I'm not going
> crazy, I took the top five books lying on
On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 07:13:50PM +, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> Mathematics is an ancient art that values tradition and convention. It
> doesn't matter how hard it was to come up with a proof, or how difficult
> to verify it. Mathematicians value logical correctness and some
> undefinable sen
Sorry about my previous posting with wrong references, this one should
be better.
Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>A simple example: Using zero-based indexing, suppose you want to indent
>the string "spam" so it starts at column 4. How many spaces to you
>prepend?
No, you won't want to indent a string
Russ P. wrote:
>> A simple example: Using zero-based indexing, suppose you want to indent
>> the string "spam" so it starts at column 4. How many spaces to you
>> prepend?
No, you won't want to indent a string so it starts at column 4. You
simply want to indent the string by four spaces. Like in
On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 12:32 PM, Steven D'Aprano
wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:57:53 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
>
>> I don't
>> know where zero-based indexing started, but I know that C used it very
>> early, probably for some minuscule performance advantage.
>
> In C, zero based indexing was used b
Russ P. wrote:
Yes, apparently Basic uses one-based indexing too.
For arrays, yes and no. Traditionally, DIM A(10) has 11 elements,
starting at 0, although it might depend on the version of Basic.
For strings, yes.
As for Ada, apparently, the programmer needs to explicitly define the
index r
Russ P. wrote:
On Aug 19, 11:42 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:03:53 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
For those who insist that zero-based indexing is a good idea, why you
suppose mathematical vector/matrix notation has never used that
convention? I have studied and used linear algebra
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:57:53 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> I don't
> know where zero-based indexing started, but I know that C used it very
> early, probably for some minuscule performance advantage.
In C, zero based indexing was used because it made pointer arithmetic
elegant and reduced bugs.
> Wh
On Aug 19, 12:13 pm, Steven D'Aprano While businesses are conservative in which languages they choose,
> language designers are not conservative in the design features they come
> up with. That there has been a gradual (although as yet incomplete)
> convergence towards zero-based indexing in langu
On 08/19/2010 02:04 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:15:54 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
The convention of starting with zero may have had some slight
performance advantage in the early days of computing, but the huge
potential for error that it introduced made it a poor choice in the
Yes, apparently Basic uses one-based indexing too.
As for Ada, apparently, the programmer needs to explicitly define the
index range for every array. Weird. But I get the impression that one-
based indexing is used much more than zero-based indexing.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pyt
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:27:18 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
[...]
>> Zero-based counting doesn't entirely eliminate off-by-one errors, but
>> the combination of that plus half-open on the right intervals reduces
>> them as much as possible.
>>
>> The intuitive one-based closed interval notation used in man
On Aug 19, 11:42 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:03:53 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> > For those who insist that zero-based indexing is a good idea, why you
> > suppose mathematical vector/matrix notation has never used that
> > convention? I have studied and used linear algebra exte
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:39:05 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> I just checked, and Mathematica uses one-based indexing. Apparently they
> want their notation to look mathematical.
Well duh. It's called MATHematica, not PROGematica.
--
Steven
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:03:53 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> For those who insist that zero-based indexing is a good idea, why you
> suppose mathematical vector/matrix notation has never used that
> convention? I have studied and used linear algebra extensively, and I
> have yet to see a single case of ve
I just checked, and Mathematica uses one-based indexing. Apparently
they want their notation to look mathematical.
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
On Aug 19, 11:04 am, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:15:54 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> > The convention of starting with zero may have had some slight
> > performance advantage in the early days of computing, but the huge
> > potential for error that it introduced made it a poor choice
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:15:54 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> The convention of starting with zero may have had some slight
> performance advantage in the early days of computing, but the huge
> potential for error that it introduced made it a poor choice in the long
> run, at least for high-level language
On Aug 19, 9:07 am, "J.B. Brown" wrote:
> 2010/8/9 MRAB :
>
> > Default User wrote:
>
> >> Not to prolong a good "food fight", but IIRC, many years ago in QBasic,
> >> one could choose
>
> >> OPTION BASE 0
>
> >> or
>
> >> OPTION BASE 1
>
> When I wrote my own C++ 2-D matrix class, I wrote a membe
On 2010-08-19, J.B. Brown wrote:
> When I wrote my own C++ 2-D matrix class, I wrote a member
> function which did exactly this - allow you to specify the
> initial index value. Then users of my class (mainly my research
> lab coworkers) could specify whichever behavior they wanted.
I did somethi
2010/8/9 MRAB :
> Default User wrote:
>>
>> Not to prolong a good "food fight", but IIRC, many years ago in QBasic,
>> one could choose
>>
>> OPTION BASE 0
>>
>> or
>>
>> OPTION BASE 1
>>
When I wrote my own C++ 2-D matrix class, I wrote a member function
which did exactly this - allow you to spec
On 2010-08-19, Russ P. wrote:
> And I'd still like to know if the "1st" element of aList is aList[0]
> or aList[1].
aList[0]
--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwardsYow! I'm definitely not
at in Omaha!
On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:55:30 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> On Aug 18, 7:58 pm, Steven D'Aprano t...@cybersource.com.au> wrote:
>> On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:47:08 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
>> > Is the top team in the league the number 1 team -- or the number 0
>> > team? I have yet to hear anyone call the best
On Aug 18, 7:58 pm, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:47:08 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> > Is the top team in the league the number 1 team -- or the number 0 team?
> > I have yet to hear anyone call the best team the number 0 team!
>
> Why is the top team the one with the lowest number?
On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:47:08 -0700, Russ P. wrote:
> Is the top team in the league the number 1 team -- or the number 0 team?
> I have yet to hear anyone call the best team the number 0 team!
Why is the top team the one with the lowest number?
> Unfortunately, we're stuck with this goofy number
On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:56:22 -0400, AK wrote:
> Contrast this with _one_ example that was repeated in this thread of
> there being ground floor, 1st floor, 2nd, and so on. However! Consider
> that ground floor is kind of different from the other floors. It's the
> floor that's not built up over gr
On 18/08/2010 22:47, Russ P. wrote:
On Aug 18, 2:01 pm, AK wrote:
On 08/17/2010 10:15 PM, Russ P. wrote:
On Aug 7, 5:54 am, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain"wrote:
Would said beginner also be surprised that a newborn baby is zero years
old or would it be more natural to call them a one year old? Z
On Aug 18, 2:01 pm, AK wrote:
> On 08/17/2010 10:15 PM, Russ P. wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Aug 7, 5:54 am, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" wrote:
>
> >> Would said beginner also be surprised that a newborn baby is zero years
> >> old or would it be more natural to call them a one year old? Zero
> >> based counting
On 08/17/2010 10:15 PM, Russ P. wrote:
On Aug 7, 5:54 am, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" wrote:
Would said beginner also be surprised that a newborn baby is zero years
old or would it be more natural to call them a one year old? Zero
based counting is perfectly natural.
You're confusing continuous and
On 08/17/2010 10:15 PM, Russ P. wrote:
On Aug 7, 5:54 am, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" wrote:
Would said beginner also be surprised that a newborn baby is zero years
old or would it be more natural to call them a one year old? Zero
based counting is perfectly natural.
You're confusing continuous and
On Aug 7, 5:54 am, "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" wrote:
> Would said beginner also be surprised that a newborn baby is zero years
> old or would it be more natural to call them a one year old? Zero
> based counting is perfectly natural.
You're confusing continuous and discrete variables. Time is a
continu
On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Lie Ryan wrote:
> On 08/16/10 21:54, David Cournapeau wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Gregory Ewing
>> wrote:
On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
> The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
> than arrays
In article <4c6a8cf...@dnews.tpgi.com.au>,
Lie Ryan wrote:
> On 08/16/10 21:54, David Cournapeau wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Gregory Ewing
> > wrote:
> >>> On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
> >>>
> The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
>
In article ,
Martin Gregorie wrote:
> > Roy wasn't using numpy/Python semantics but made-up semantics (following
> > Martin Gregorie's made-up semantics to which he was replying) which
> > treat the step size as a true size, not a size and direction. The
> > direction is determined from the star
On Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:22:27 -0500, Robert Kern wrote:
> On 8/16/10 11:10 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>> On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:56:20 -0500, Robert Kern wrote:
>>
>>> On 8/16/10 9:29 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
In article,
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message, Roy Smith
> wr
On 8/16/10 11:10 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:56:20 -0500, Robert Kern wrote:
On 8/16/10 9:29 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
In article,
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
In message, Roy Smith wrote:
5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
How many elements in that array?
a) 299
On 08/16/10 21:54, David Cournapeau wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Gregory Ewing
> wrote:
>>> On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
>>>
The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
refl
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:56:20 -0500, Robert Kern wrote:
> On 8/16/10 9:29 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
>> In article,
>> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> In message, Roy Smith wrote:
>>>
5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
>>>
>>> How many elements in that array?
>>>
>>> a) 2999
>>> b) 3000
>>>
On 8/16/10 9:29 PM, Roy Smith wrote:
In article,
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
In message, Roy Smith wrote:
5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
How many elements in that array?
a) 2999
b) 3000
c) neither of the above
c) neither of the above. More specifically, 13,001 (if I counted
co
In article ,
Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message , Roy Smith wrote:
>
> > 5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
>
> How many elements in that array?
>
> a) 2999
> b) 3000
> c) neither of the above
c) neither of the above. More specifically, 13,001 (if I counted
correctly).
--
http://
In message , Roy Smith wrote:
> 5) real intensity[160.0 : 30.0 : 0.01]
How many elements in that array?
a) 2999
b) 3000
c) neither of the above
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
In article ,
Martin Gregorie wrote:
> Say you have intensity data captured from an X-ray goniometer from 160
> degrees to 30 degrees at 0.01 degree resolution. Which is most evil of
> the following?
>
> 1) real intensity[16000:3000]
>for i from lwb intensity to upb intensity
> plot(
On 2010-08-15, John Nagle wrote:
> In retrospect, C's "pointer=array" concept was a terrible
> mistake.
C arrays are not pointers.
--
Neil Cerutti
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 9:53 AM, Gregory Ewing
wrote:
>> On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
>>
>>> The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
>>> than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
>>> reflects standard practice in mathematics.
>
> Not alway
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:33:51 +1200, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Ian Kelly wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Martin Gregorie
>> wrote:
>
>>> real sample[-500:750];
>
>> Ugh, no. The ability to change the minimum index is evil.
>
> Not always; it can have its uses, particularly when
On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:28:46 +1200, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> In message <8crg0effb...@mid.individual.net>, Gregory Ewing wrote:
>
>> For example, the constant term of a polynomial is usually called term
>> 0, not term 1.
>
> That is not some kind of ordinal numbering of the terms, that is th
in 639663 20100815 120123 Lawrence D'Oliveiro
wrote:
>In message , Ian Kelly
>wrote:
>
>> The ability to change the minimum index is evil.
>
>Pascal allowed you to do that. And nobody ever characterized Pascal as
>âevilâ. Not for that reason, anyway...
Why do you refer to Pascal in the past
In message <8crg0effb...@mid.individual.net>, Gregory Ewing wrote:
> For example, the constant term of a polynomial is usually called term 0,
> not term 1.
That is not some kind of ordinal numbering of the terms, that is the power
of the variable involved.
And polynomials can have negative powe
In article <8crg0effb...@mid.individual.net>,
Gregory Ewing wrote:
> Not always -- mathematicians use whatever starting index is
> most convenient for the problem at hand.
Which may be 0, 1, or something else. There are plenty of situations,
for example, where you might want to use both posit
On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
reflects standard practice in mathematics.
Not always -- mathematicians use whatever starting index is
most convenient for
Roald de Vries wrote:
On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
Which somewhat defeats the point of trying to make them
look the
same, don’t you think?
How are they not the same?
One way to see that they're not *exactly* the same is
the fact that
sizeof("python rocks")
i
Ian Kelly wrote:
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
real sample[-500:750];
Ugh, no. The ability to change the minimum index is evil.
Not always; it can have its uses, particularly when you're
using the array as a mapping rather than a collection.
Pascal had
On 8/15/2010 4:00 AM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
In message, Thomas
Jollans wrote:
"Where it all started" is that 0-based indexing gives languages like C a
very nice property: a[i] and *(a+i) are equivalent in C. From a language
design viewpoint, I think that's quite a strong argument.
It wou
Roald de Vries wrote:
On Aug
15, 2010, at 2:16 PM, geremy condra wrote:
On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Roald de Vries
wrote:
On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It would be if pointers and arrays were the same thing in C. Only
they’re
not, quite. Which somewhat defeats
On Aug 15, 2010, at 2:16 PM, geremy condra wrote:
On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Roald de Vries
wrote:
On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It would be if pointers and arrays were the same thing in C. Only
they’re
not, quite. Which somewhat defeats the point of trying
On Sun, Aug 15, 2010 at 4:55 AM, Roald de Vries wrote:
> On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> It would be if pointers and arrays were the same thing in C. Only they’re
>> not, quite. Which somewhat defeats the point of trying to make them look
>> the
>> same, don’t you thi
On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
FORTRAN, MATLAB, and Octave all use 1-based subscripts.
The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
reflects standard practice in mathematics.
True, but that somethi
On Aug 15, 2010, at 1:00 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
It would be if pointers and arrays were the same thing in C. Only
they’re
not, quite. Which somewhat defeats the point of trying to make them
look the
same, don’t you think?
How are they not the same?
The code snippet (in C/C++) below
In message , Ian Kelly
wrote:
> The ability to change the minimum index is evil.
Pascal allowed you to do that. And nobody ever characterized Pascal as
“evil”. Not for that reason, anyway...
--
http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
In message , Thomas
Jollans wrote:
> "Where it all started" is that 0-based indexing gives languages like C a
> very nice property: a[i] and *(a+i) are equivalent in C. From a language
> design viewpoint, I think that's quite a strong argument.
It would be if pointers and arrays were the same th
In message <4c5db0ae$0$1641$742ec...@news.sonic.net>, John Nagle wrote:
> The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
> than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
> reflects standard practice in mathematics.
Actually I’d go one better, and say that the lang
On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
> In a higher level language 1-based indexing is just as limiting as 0-
> based indexing. What you really want is the ability to declare the index
> range to suit the problem: in Algol 60 it is very useful to be able to
> declare something l
On 8/13/2010 11:27 AM, Den wrote:
I smile every time I see the non-nonsensical sentence "The first
thing, therefore, is in thing[0]" in a programming language learning
book or tutorial. I laugh every time I hear someone defend that as
common sense.
If one thinks in terms of slicing at gap po
Sorry the message gets cuts off by an accidental press of send button.
On 08/14/10 04:31, Lie Ryan wrote:
> On 08/10/10 06:36, Bartc wrote:
>> And if the context is Python, I doubt whether the choice of 0-based over a
>> 1-based makes that much difference in execution speed.
>
> And I doubt anyo
On 08/10/10 06:36, Bartc wrote:
> And if the context is Python, I doubt whether the choice of 0-based over a
> 1-based makes that much difference in execution speed.
And I doubt anyone cares about execution speed when deciding whether to
use 1-based or 0-based array. The reason why you want to ch
On Fri, 13 Aug 2010 19:14:44 +0200, Thomas Jollans wrote:
> "Where it all started" is that 0-based indexing gives languages like C a
> very nice property: a[i] and *(a+i) are equivalent in C. From a language
> design viewpoint, I think that's quite a strong argument. Languages
> based directly on
On 2010-08-13, Thomas Jollans wrote:
> 1-based indexing might seam more intuitive, but in the end,
> it's just another thing you have to learn when learning a
> language, like "commas make tuples", and somebody studying a
> programming language learns it, and gets used to it if they
> aren't used
On 2010-08-13 17:27, Den wrote:
> There may be loads of reasons for it, but don't throw common sense
> around as one of them.
>
It's a good thing then that I didn't:
>> ... However, the killer reason is: "it's what everybody
>> else does.
>>
>
"Where it all started" is that 0-based index
> ... However, the killer reason is: "it's what everybody
> else does.
If this were really true, lists would be 1-based. I go back to
WATFOR; and Fortran (and I believe Cobol and PL/I, though I'm not
positive about them) were 1-based. (Now that I think about it, PL/I,
knowing IBM, could probably
Terry Reedy wrote:
On 8/9/2010 11:16 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
Just for the record:
I sincerely apologize for my rant. I usually don't loose control so
heavily, but this "Rick" person makes me mad (killfile'd now)
IOW, the "Ugly American".
No! That's not what I said. I'm myself one of tho
On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:51:17 +0200
Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
Pardon the response to the response. I missed Ben's message.
> Ben Finney wrote:
> > "D'Arcy J.M. Cain" writes:
> >> No. You are giving me math and logic but the subject was common
> >> sense.
> >
> > Common sense is often unhelp
Ben Finney wrote:
"D'Arcy J.M. Cain" writes:
No. You are giving me math and logic but the subject was common
sense.
Common sense is often unhelpful, and in such cases the best way to teach
something is to plainly contradict that common sense.
Common sense, for example, would have t
"Nobody" wrote in message
news:pan.2010.08.07.15.23.59.515...@nowhere.com...
> On Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:48:32 +0200, News123 wrote:
>
>>> "Common sense" is wrong. There are many compelling advantages to
>>> numbering from zero instead of one:
>>>
>>> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1950
>>
>
"D'Arcy J.M. Cain" wrote in message
news:mailman.1735.1281185722.1673.python-l...@python.org...
> On Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:48:32 +0200
> News123 wrote:
>> It makes sense in assembly language and even in many byte code languages.
>> It makes sense if you look at the internal representation of unsi
On 2010-08-09, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 8/9/2010 11:16 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>> IOW, the "Ugly American".
> [snip hate rant]
>
> Stereotypically bashing "Americans"
I wasn't bashing "Americans". I was making light of a certain type of
American tourist commonly denoted by the phrase "ugly ame
On 8/9/2010 11:16 AM, Grant Edwards wrote:
IOW, the "Ugly American".
[snip hate rant]
Stereotypically bashing "Americans" is as ugly and obnoxious as bashing
any other ethnic group. I have traveled the world and Americans are no
worse, but are pretty much the same mix of good and bad. It is
On 2010-08-07, Hexamorph wrote:
> Lurking for long enough to know your style. Looking at your Unicode
> rant, combined with some other comments and your general "I am right
> and you are wrong because you disagree with me." style, I came to
> the conclusion, that you are either a faschist or t
> > 1) Why do Python lists start with element [0], instead of element
> > [1]? "Common sense" would seem to suggest that lists should start
> > with [1].
Because Zero is the neutral element of addition operation. And indexes
(and all adresses in computing) involve with addition much more than
On 2010-08-08 05:18, Dennis Lee Bieber wrote:
> Was it this thread where I commented that many early BASICs would
> allocate an eleven element array on
>
> DIM A(10)
VB.net does this -- to cater for the classic VB programmer who is used
to being able to index the number in brackets, and the .
Default User wrote:
Not to prolong a good "food fight", but IIRC, many years ago in QBasic,
one could choose
OPTION BASE 0
or
OPTION BASE 1
to make arrays start with element [0] or element [1], respectively.
Could such a feature be added to Python without significantly bloating
the interpr
On Sun, Aug 8, 2010 at 10:24 AM, Default User wrote:
> Not to prolong a good "food fight", but IIRC, many years ago in QBasic,
> one could choose
>
> OPTION BASE 0
>
> or
>
> OPTION BASE 1
>
> to make arrays start with element [0] or element [1], respectively. Could
> such a feature be added to P
Not to prolong a good "food fight", but IIRC, many years ago in QBasic,
one could choose
OPTION BASE 0
or
OPTION BASE 1
to make arrays start with element [0] or element [1], respectively. Could
such a feature be added to Python without significantly bloating the
interpreter?
Then, if starting
In article
<7f3c505c-4002-427e-a969-6d735307e...@z10g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
CM wrote:
> > Apparently, the Japanese used to (before they started adopting western
> > conventions). I.e. ages were given as "in his tenth year" (meaning nine
> > years old).
With apologies to Paul Simon...
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