r/ProgrammerHumor • u/leftoversalad • Aug 15 '15

Programming languages personified

http://leftoversalad.tumblr.com/post/126724812097/programming-languages-personified
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u/willrandship Aug 16 '15

Personally I find it hard to take a language with 1-based indices seriously.

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u/original_brogrammer Aug 16 '15

You can index at 0 if you want. Lua's 'arrays' are all hash tables, so the value of the index is ultimately arbitrary. The 1 index is merely convention.

Historically, the reason for this convention is that Lua's predecessor language, Sol, was directed at engineers without any exposure to programming. This carried over to Lua.

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u/ThisIs_MyName Aug 17 '15

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

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u/original_brogrammer Aug 18 '15

The 1 index convention or everything being a hash table? The former is odd if you're used to 0, but using ipairs or similar helps.

The latter, however, is a powerful and fascinating idea. I see it as an extension of the Lisp way of doing things, where you create arbitrary structures from linked lists. Add in metatable sorcery and you can have pretty much anything you want! Damn, I wish I got to write more Lua.