[Edu-sig] None potato, one potato, two potato, more..

[Jason Cunliffe]

Well it would be interesting one of our parallel edu-sig futures if everyone
were taught basic counting as "0, 1, 2 3, 4" and Cities named their streets
that way and George Washingon was inaiguratied proudly as the Zeroth
president of the USA etc..

And children could merrily sing: "Zero Potato, one potato, two potato,
more..."

The BIG problem imo is that zero is not None and especially when it is used
an *adjective* which is typical in human counting and speech.

Programming *is* hard.
But it's also much harder than it ought to be, and often intially  for many
pretty basic counter-intuitive reasons. And if not counter-intuitive, at
least contra-status quo.

In natural speech we all say :
The FIRST item on the agenda... etc.
FIRST chop some onions and garlic [cooking recipes as programming]

So who's is nuts and being unnecessarily difficult  - programmers who invent
zero indexes or humans who write great stories: Act One, Scene One
[playwriting/screenplay/books as programming] ?

But I suppose its now too late in may respects, and Zeroth must be accepted
like QWERTY as strange gift of history. And in 40years time "zeroth" may be
widelty used everyday adjective because its programming context will be a
common experience in elementary education.

What  other programming constructs to you think will enter everyday speech ?

- Jason