[Jprogramming] index origin 0

Sun Jul 25 03:31:00 HKT 2010

Roger Hui wrote:
> ... The question is, does the choice of a fixed value of 0 for index
> origin a hindrance to your work? The question is specifically
> addressed to "ordinary domain experts", people with no software
> engineering in their background and are not professional
> mathematicians. 

My formal background is in education, music, theology, and 
librarianship.
I've programmed (self-taught) as a hobby (with a tiny bit of 
entrepreneurship at one point) and to create tools for myself to 
support my own productivity since the MITS Altair in the mid-1970s and 
the first version of Microsoft (Altair) BASIC. I don't remember if it 
was there at the beginning or came later, but those BASIC's had the 
ability to specify array origins at either 0 or 1. Personally, I've 
always felt that a 0-origin was an awkward concept promoted by the fact 
that computers can only binarily count, say, using 4 bits, from 0 to 15 
rather than the standard "human" count of 1 to 16. Subsequently, in 
using computers (binary machines), I've seen where 0-origins provide 
certain programming conveniences (but, again, it's because we're 
working with machines not people.) There are lots of things in life 
you don't like, but you learn to live with them. To me, 0-origin is 
one of them.
Harvey