Defend zero-based arrays

Posted by DrJokepu on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by DrJokepu
Published on 2008-12-26T04:12:05Z Indexed on 2010/06/18 14:43 UTC
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language-agnostic

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A question asked here recently reminded me of a debate I had not long ago with a fellow programmer. Basically he argued that zero-based arrays should be replaced by one-based arrays since arrays being zero based is an implementation detail that originates from the way arrays and pointers and computer hardware work, but these sort of stuff should not be reflected in higher level languages.

Now I am not really good at debating so I couldn't really offer any good reasons to stick with zero-based arrays other than they sort of feel like more appropriate. I am really interested in the opinions of other developers, so I sort of challenge you to come up with reasons to stick with zero-based arrays!

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