From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Jeffrey R. Carter" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: What is the history behind Natural'First = 0 ? Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 12:13:12 +0200 Organization: Also freenews.netfront.net; news.tornevall.net; news.eternal-september.org Message-ID: References: <9f0215ca-2760-47cf-a7cb-50184892e1d0@googlegroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Fri, 1 May 2020 10:13:12 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="5ce5ccfb2c0b432a41dc058f160dfa9c"; logging-data="13807"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+wf9ZsFskjIg+ilRlSNCDfMBvjmVSQ018=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:68.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/68.7.0 Cancel-Lock: sha1:fLaRq8swgqCjzlPJzbBJ5+NYRio= In-Reply-To: <9f0215ca-2760-47cf-a7cb-50184892e1d0@googlegroups.com> Content-Language: en-US Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:58540 Date: 2020-05-01T12:13:12+02:00 List-Id: On 5/1/20 6:51 AM, reinert wrote: > > There is no consensus about including 0 among the natural numbers. Precisely, so Ichbiah was free to use Natural for whichever definition he considered best. There was a need for subtypes with lower bounds of 0 and 1, and those subtypes needed names, and Ichbiah chose Natural and Positive for them. This seems like a good choice; if Natural is used for the latter, I cannot think of a decent name for the former (Non_Negative? Natural_Plus_Zero?). Given the obvious alternative name Positive for the subtype beginning with 1, it seems pragmatic to use Natural for the subtype beginning with 0. IIRC, Natural and Positive existed in Ada 80. > Is the key point here: "the standard ISO 80000-2" ? I doubt it, since that standard didn't exist in 1980. -- Jeff Carter "Why, the Mayflower was full of Fireflies, and a few horseflies, too. The Fireflies were on the upper deck, and the horseflies were on the Fireflies." Duck Soup 95