Brad is saying what I've been saying, while a uint CAN represent a cardinal
number, one does NOT ALWAYS represent a cardinal number, so saying this only IS
a cardinal number is WRONG. -- Darren Duncan
On 2020-01-13 12:56 p.m., Brad Gilbert wrote:
Ok looking into it, zero is inside of the set of cardinal numbers.
It is still wrong to call a uint a cardinal number.
It's just wrong for a different reason.
Looking through various definitions, a cardinal number is a number which
represents a count of sets.
So a uint could be used to represent a cardinal number, but it could just as
easily be a number that represents something other than a count.
If it is being used to index into a list it would be an ordinal number. (And so
definitely not a cardinal number.)
Calling them cardinal numbers would imply something about them that may or may
not be true.
If it is being used to store a bitmask, then it would be wrong to call it a
cardinal, ordinal, or even a natural number.
It may also be wrong to call it an integer, but at least that is what CPU
designers call it.
