Volker, Perhaps you overestimate the extent of complication after
the appropriate programming of Maxima has implemented this option. Clearly,
for rearward compatibility, the default would have to remain the present
setting. Any code worthy of retention beyond a single session of a
single user should of course be documented, to the effect that the base
has been, and must be again, altered from the default value when that is
the case, to reproduce the proper results of use of that code.
I have experience with a version of Hewlett-Packard Basic some years
ago in which such an option existed, and never encountered great problems
in such operation. That flexibility in usage proved most useful on
occasion.
Because clearly two standards or conventions exist -- numbering
beginning at 0 or at 1 -- according to the traditional disparate usage by
significant groups of users, such as mathematicians and physicists, the
design of a truly general processor for symbolic computation should take
such circumstances into account.
JFO
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007, van Nek wrote:
> John,
>
> I fear that such a choice would make things really complicate.
>
> If you want to give your code to someone else you had to write
> my_list: [foo,bar,baz]$
> n: 3$
> my_value: my_list[ n - ( 1 - default_for_indexing_the_first_entry ) ];
> ==> baz
>
> And all code in the share packages written on Maxima level had to be rewritten in that
> sense.
>
> Volker van Nek
>
>
> Am 14 Nov 2007 um 17:41 hat John Ogilvie geschrieben:
>
>> May I suggest that a choice of base 0 or 1 for vectors, also the numbering
>> of rows and columns of matrices and arrays, might be left to the user,
>> whether mathematician or otherwise? Either 0 or 1 might be the default
>> value, with an option by the user to alter this value, just for the
>> subsequent session or until reset.
>> JFO
>
>