Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!uunet!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: "Numerical Recipes in C" is nonportable code Message-ID: <1604@ficc.uu.net> Date: 24 Sep 88 15:11:52 GMT References: <664@lindy.Stanford.EDU> <6758@megaron.arizona.edu> <718@gtx.com> <21058@watmath.waterloo.edu> Organization: SCADA Lines: 18 In article <21058@watmath.waterloo.edu>, atbowler@watmath.waterloo.edu (Alan T. Bowler [SDG]) writes: > In article <531@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere) writes: > >Gentlemen >system programmers, surely you too have algorithms that are > >more accurately expressed with arrays from other than base zero? [ complaints from programmers ] > and numerical analysts was about how awkward it was to code algorithms > in Fortran-IV because it used origin 1 indexing and origin 0 would > clearly have been so much more "natural". Most cases 0 is more natural. For some cases 1 is more natural. For other cases -63 might be more natural. and for others 7 might be the best base. Fortran now allows these other bases (we use a lot of 0-based arrays here). 'C' doesn't. There is some question whether it should. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' Ferranti International Controls Corporation. "Have you hugged U your wolf today?" peter@ficc.uu.net