Re: [Fsfe-uk] AFFS web site

[Chris Croughton]

On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 01:29:19PM +0100, Alex Hudson wrote:

> On Thu, May 01, 2003 at 01:00:34PM +0100, Marc Eberhard wrote:
> > > Can we please change the numbering? To the average person who counts from
> > > 1, the use of "0,1,2,3" looks odd at best.
> > 
> > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
> > 
> > Not sure, why the FSF decided to number from 0, but as these numbers are
> > freqeuntly used when refering to the freedoms, we'd probably create some
> > confusion by changing it. The only compromise I could see, would be to drop
> > the numbers entirely or to explain, that programmers start arrays at element
> > 0 and not 1.
> 
> I think it was the C array thing. I guess you could read it as a tribute
> to Asimov or something, though. 

Asimov's Laws of Robotics started at 1 (correctly, in English usage).
Only much later did he realise that he wanted something more important
than the First Law and so created the horribly named "Zeroth Law" (the
'Law' itself isn't much better).

The use of cardinal numbers in a list is a shorthand for using ordinals:

  The first freedom is...
  The second freedom is...

No native English speaker would start a list by saying "The zeroth item"
-- if one puts down a row of apples, would even a hardcore hacker say
"this is the zeroth apple" except as a joke?

> I would prefer to keep it identical to the FSF version, especially since
> I have seen people refer to freedoms by number in the past. But, I take
> Andrew's point - it would be useful to explain the numbering beforehand.
> I'm sure I have read it somewhere, but it's perhaps something RMS only
> explains at his talks. I'm pretty confident it's a kind of hacker joke 
> though.

It is, and it's one I think should be dropped unless hackers really want
to be labelled as geeks and weirdos.  Along with the -P suffix and other
injokes, it is fine when used only within the community but used in
public it becomes a marker and an excuse to not take programmers
seriously, especially in legalistic documents.

Chris C