> I have to offer a counter view to this. Using letters of the alphabet as an analogy isn't accurate to me. Each letter we accept as an element... so a true analogy would be to put a Space as the first character of the alphabet, to indicate the absence of a letter.
So, you would say that "A" is not the first element of the alphabet or that "0" is not the first cardinal number?
> Zero indicates the absence of a value in our numbering system.
You are utterly confused. If I have an account balance of zero, that indicates an absence of a value? How is zero mathematically any different then +1000 or -1000 that justifies making it a special case?
> If I have a single apple, I have 1 Apple, not 0 Apples. Thus if I have 1 element in an Array I have element[1], not element[0].
You are mixing up ordinal and cardinal numbers.
> It is more natural for us to use numbers not by their cardinal position in a set, but by their inferred value... because they represent quantities.
There is no such thing as a "cardinal position", positions are ordinal, cardinality describes sizes.
> I am one of those who feels the confusion around zero bounded indexes leads to countless issues because it is counter-intuitive to how we use numbers in real life.
Nope, what leads to problems is that people don't understand the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers. You cannot fix that by changing the first index, all that causes is a shift to different bugs. Including stuff like equating zero with the absence of a value.
So, you would say that "A" is not the first element of the alphabet or that "0" is not the first cardinal number?
> Zero indicates the absence of a value in our numbering system.
You are utterly confused. If I have an account balance of zero, that indicates an absence of a value? How is zero mathematically any different then +1000 or -1000 that justifies making it a special case?
> If I have a single apple, I have 1 Apple, not 0 Apples. Thus if I have 1 element in an Array I have element[1], not element[0].
You are mixing up ordinal and cardinal numbers.
> It is more natural for us to use numbers not by their cardinal position in a set, but by their inferred value... because they represent quantities.
There is no such thing as a "cardinal position", positions are ordinal, cardinality describes sizes.
> I am one of those who feels the confusion around zero bounded indexes leads to countless issues because it is counter-intuitive to how we use numbers in real life.
Nope, what leads to problems is that people don't understand the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers. You cannot fix that by changing the first index, all that causes is a shift to different bugs. Including stuff like equating zero with the absence of a value.