Programmer Humor

32548 readers

813 users here now

Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)

Rules:

Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
No NSFW content.
Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

1461

Off by one solitude (fed.dyne.org)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

146 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I've been a software engineer for almost 20 years now. 'A', at index 0*, is the first thing in the array.

* well, unless you're using some language that actually is not zero-indexed. I think LUA is one?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's because you use English, a language where ordinals traditionally begin at one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

So, based on

Every programmer knows that 'A' in ['A', 'B', 'C', 'D'] would be the 0th item; the first item is 'B'

You're saying I can't be a programmer because I speak English?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

No, what I said is true if you use zero-based numbering. But when communicating with others in English, the label "first" refers to the element with the smallest index. In zero-based numbering, the label "zeroth" refers to the element with the lowest index. It's just not the default in English, but you can definitely use zero-based numbering in English if you're willing to edit the configuration files.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Calling index zero the first is correct, but risks misunderstandings such as in the op comic

That is why many call index zero the zeroth index