On: Why we created Julia - new language for fresh approach to technical computing

[jfager]

Matlab, Octave, Mathematica, and other mathematical programming environments use 1-based indexing, it's a well-established norm for the domain.

[Loic → jfager]

Fortran too and in HPC we all code in Fortran a lot. Look at the loop construct:

     for i = 1:t

in Fortran:

     DO I=1,T

The ability to load both C and Fortran dynamic libraries is also really really nice.

[ced → jfager]

Does 1-based indexing have any advantage, beyond familiarity to scientists?

[cscheid → ced]

Dijkstra to the rescue: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EW...

[jballanc → ced]

With 1-based indexing, length == last index.

Does 0-based indexing have any advantage, beyond ability to do pointer arithmetic with indexes?

[scott_s → jballanc]

In 0-based indexing, n % length is a value inside the range.

[jfager → ced]

Not really, but it's not important either way.