Re:A newcomer’s (angry) guide to R
by dnautics on Thursday June 14, 2018 @10:44AM
(#17312090)
Generally 1 is considered the first natural number, except bourbaki.
The reason for this is the set {1...n} has order n, but the set {0...n} has order n+1, so you get lots of off by n+1 inelegancies or errors when order is important. It's better to be explicit at the set level when you need an {0...n-1} set, because usually the order gets passed around to later expressions and not the set element, so there's less algebra.
Zero indexing is great when your index is an offset, as it is for true arrays.
The reason for this is the set {1...n} has order n, but the set {0...n} has order n+1, so you get lots of off by n+1 inelegancies or errors when order is important. It's better to be explicit at the set level when you need an {0...n-1} set, because usually the order gets passed around to later expressions and not the set element, so there's less algebra.
Zero indexing is great when your index is an offset, as it is for true arrays.