[R] Zero Index Origin?

[Peter Dalgaard]

Bob Cain <arcane at arcanemethods.com> writes:

> Jason Turner wrote:
> 
> 
> > I do some DSP work, in the context of instrumentation signal filtering,
> > identification, tracking, and coherence (finding plant signals that have
> > similar "fingerprints").  I agree that in languages that require you to
> > work with explicit index values, the zero-offset makes perfect sense.
> > However, I'd like to second Prof. Ripley's remark that if you're
> > actually
> > using indicies explicitly, you probably haven't wrapped your head around
> > how powerful the indexing structure and "whole object" approach is in S
> > (including R).  It's been a long time since I used counter-based indicies.
> 
> I absolutely agree that the powerful indexing in R ameliorates it to a
> large extent but even the less powerful indexing of Matlab should
> satisfy that condition and yet there is still considerable sturm and
> drang over this issue.

I think it was said quite early in the thread, but since noone
apparently listened, let me reiterate: One of the powerful indexing
features in R is the negative index ("all, except") and x[-0] would
lead to some complications if 0 was a true index. 

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907