Björn's story reminds me of the one about the archaeologist who found a Roman coin with an emperor's head on it below which was stamped the date 200 BC - a truly impressive find!
I used APL from the early-80s to the late 90s and invariably was happy to use an index origin of 1 for most of my coding - it was the default setting whilst I was learning APL and I continued with it from a pragmatic point of view. It just seemed easier to stick with what I was used to. My background in using APL was in actuarial applications and operational research. Simon -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Björn Helgason Sent: 26 July 2010 10:34 To: Programming forum Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] index origin 0 If you go into a lift or an elevator in different countries you will find that the ground floor is sometimes 0 and sometimes 1. Quite often floor zero is marked G for Ground floor. It is also different if people are counting floors or if they are counting living spaces or levels and of course if there are cellars involved. Sometimes the cellars are half way down and sometimes there are several levels of cellars. So do you number the cellar 0 or _1? If you have several levels of cellars it is probably more natural to number the first level of cellars _1 So the index origin in elevators is probably dependent mostly if you are counting levels or floors. I remember a story told about how people were scared in the years before BC because they were living in years _1, _2, _3.... etc and they were afraid what would happen year 0 and following years or if there would be any. 2010/7/24 Don Guinn <[email protected]>: > Isn't the floor above the ground floor numbered "1" or "first" in Great > Britain? -- Bj�rn Helgason, Verkfr��ingur Fornustekkum II 781 Hornafir�i, t-p�st: [email protected] gsm: +3546985532 s�mi: +3544781286 http://groups.google.com/group/J-Programming T�knikunn�tta h�ndlar hi� fl�kna, sk�punarg�fa er meistari einfaldleikans g��ur kennari getur stigi� � t�r �n �ess a� glansinn fari af sk�num � � � � � /|_� � � .-----------------------------------. � � � �� ,'� .\� /� | Me� l�ttri lund ver�ur� � � � | � �� ,--'� � _,'�� | Dagurinn � dag� � � � � � � � � �� | � � /� � �� /� � �� | Enn betri en g�rdagurinn� | �� (�� -.� |� � � � `-----------------------------------' �� |� �� ) |� � � �� (\_ _/) � (`-.� '--.)� � �� (='.'=)�� ?????? �� `. )----'� � � � (")_(") ?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
