RE: One-based indexes in XPath

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Subject: RE: One-based indexes in XPath
From: Wendell Piez <wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 18:02:10 -0400

At 05:13 AM 5/21/2008, Owen wrote:

Dijkstra wrote a note "Why numbering should start at zero":
<http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD08xx/EWD831.html>

This is great. Especially the confession that this most "natural" rational argument was spurred in reaction to to an emotional outburst by a person who had supposed that a reasonable, considered decision to number from zero, then applied out of habit (probably in a context outside the proper scope of the numbering system, although we aren't told this), to be "pedantry", and therefore, by implication, to be motivated by something other than reason.

What the argument doesn't consider is that the habit of counting from zero might have been both reasonable and pedantic, since motivations need not be exclusive of one another (much as this might bother reasonable people). The argument is made that zero-based numbering is convenient and reasonable, but it does not demonstrate that the charge of pedantry was unjust.

I agree that XSLT made the right decision, while I admit that it's sometimes awkward.

And I suspect that Justin agrees that if XSLT's designers had designed it so as to avoid any offense to Javascript programmers (or to callow youth of any persuasion), it would probably be even more awkward than it is.

Cheers,
Wendell


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Wendell Piez                            mailto:wapiez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Current Thread

Re: One-based indexes in XPath, (continued)
- Colin Adams - 20 May 2008 16:49:05 -0000
- Mukul Gandhi - 20 May 2008 16:51:14 -0000
- Michael Kay - 20 May 2008 17:05:31 -0000
  - Owen Rees - 21 May 2008 09:15:45 -0000
    - Wendell Piez - 21 May 2008 22:08:44 -0000 <=
- Mukul Gandhi - 20 May 2008 17:30:46 -0000
  - Michael Kay - 20 May 2008 18:21:39 -0000
    - Kevin Grover - 21 May 2008 04:31:51 -0000
- Justin Johansson - 20 May 2008 17:07:42 -0000

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