On Aug 7, 2010, at 9:14 PM, John Nagle wrote:
FORTRAN, MATLAB, and Octave all use 1-based subscripts.
The languages which have real multidimensional arrays, rather
than arrays of arrays, tend to use 1-based subscripts. That
reflects standard practice in mathematics.
True, but that something is "standard mathematical notation" doesn't
mean it's preferable. For example, I have never seen keyword arguments
in mathematical notation, and it's definitely not standard practice,
but nobody would drop them in favor of standard mathematical notation.
In fact, I think, regularly mathematical notation can be improved by
standard programming notation.
Moreover, I don't see what's so nice about 'real' multidimensional
arrays; the way to construct multidimensional arrays from one-
dimensional ones is more orthogonal. And you never *have* to think
about them as being one-dimensional, it's just a bonus you can
(sometimes) profit from.
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