[TUHS] Array index history

[arjanen.loic@gmail.com (ARJANEN Loïc Jean David)]

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Le jeudi 8 juin 2017, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> a écrit :

> On 6/7/2017 3:03 PM, Ron Natalie wrote:
>
>> Why go to the trouble of decrementing the index to retreive the first
>>> entry?
>>>
>> What makes you think that you have to decrement the index.    Don't get
>> sucked up in the idiotic C implementation of an array.   Arrays can be
>> efficiently implemented no matter where the index starts.
>>
>>
>> In the days when memory and clock cycles were costly, an extra decrement
> or subtract was not something to be taken lightly :)
>

I doubt that avoiding a decrement was really the reason. I mean, it's an
array: if you're 0-basing it you're still paying a decrement but for bounds
checking this time. Keeping as close as possible to how the target machine
worked or following a convention in another hand, that I can see.

Loïc


-- 
ARJANEN Loïc Jean David
http://blog.luigiscorner.com
---
“Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about
telescopes, biology is about microscopes, or chemistry is about beakers and
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what we find out when we do.”
Michael R. Fellows and Ian Parberry
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