Python "why" questions

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:55:30 -0700, Russ P. wrote:

> On Aug 18, 7:58 pm, Steven D'Aprano <steve-REMOVE-
> T... at 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 team the number 0 team!
>>
>> Why is the top team the one with the lowest number?
> 
> How could it be otherwise? What is the highest number?

If there are N teams, then the highest number is obviously N (if counting 
from 1) or N-1 (if from 0).

In other words... why do we rank sporting teams Best to Worst rather than 
the other way around?


[...]
> Maybe "goofy" was too derogatory, but I think you are rationalizing a
> bad decision, at least for high-level languages. I don't think
> programming languages should always mimic human languages, but this is
> one case where there is no advantage to doing otherwise.
> 
> Why do you think "off by one" errors are so common? Because the darn
> indexing convention is off by one!

But you have that exactly backwards. Counting from 0 leads to fewer off 
by one errors for many tasks.

(Of course, avoiding indexing in favour of iteration leads to even fewer 
off by one errors.)

Anyway, in a feeble attempt to move this discussion somewhere -- 
anywhere! -- else:

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FencePostError
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyNumberingShouldStartAtZero
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyNumberingShouldStartAtOne
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/zero

and of course:

http://xkcd.com/163/




-- 
Steven