On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 20:51, Ross Werner wrote: > On Mon, 6 Oct 2003, Matt W. wrote: > > > From: "Ross Werner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Ha! "2" is the /third/ number in base ten. > > > > > > A true geek would never make such a mistake ... > > > > > > ~ ross > > > > I think it is interesting that if anyone (who's in the know) starts writing > > out consecutive numbers in binary, he will start with 0. However, in base > > 10, he will start with 1. The first address/state is 0000 (binary) not > > 0001. > > "A friend" wants to know why we're so inconsistent with our > 0-first/1-first counting methods. For example, if your program counts how > many tests have been taken and divides the total score, finding the > average, we have to start counting by one. (If we start at zero, we find > that dividing by zero is not very pretty.) On the other hand, arrays and > memory addressing start at zero. Why can't everything just start with one > or the other?! > It's not inconsistent. One is counting, the other is addressing. We'd be wasteful to not use zero as a valid address.
Bryan ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
