Alright, fair point. Clearly there are merits to both systems (see other answers). If there’s a floor -1 and a floor 1 I’d expect there to be a floor 0 between them, and I don’t think anyone would propose that floor 0 would have you climb down from street level to reach. That’s why it makes sense to have ground floor at 0 to me.
It also might help to call them floor 1, floor 2 etc. instead of first floor, second floor, etc… It’s kind of like how the 20th century is the one going 19xx. So the 20th floor being floor 19 isn’t too farfetched.
I am aghast that you assume I use floats anywhere in my code. The cookie has an eaten flag and in one tick it goes from false to true. If you want partial cookie eating tracking we can plan a future update.
How’d y’all communicate with builders? Do you say this building has 0 floors to say that it’s si gle story and say that it has 1 floor to mean that it’s 2-story?
Well in my native language the word for ground floor would translate to something like “next to ground” and above that would be first floor which would be “above ceiling” in direct translation
Because it has a special place, i.e. it’s leveled with the ground, so anything above it you need to climb up, anything below it you need to climb down.
Think of it this way, floor is a synonym with level, if I asked you to tell me which level the ground is at the only logical answer is 0, if you say the ground is at level 1 that implies that the first basement is level 0 which sounds ridiculous.
If you’re in an elevator that has the numbers from -5 to 15, where is the only logical place for the ground to be at?
So to preface this, it’s all arbitrary so there isn’t a right or wrong as long as it’s consistent.
The question might be better phrased this way: are we numbering distance or counting spaces?
If the year is 2024, what century is it? How about if the year is 700? How about if the year is "-700” (700 BCE)? Now which century is the zero century? 🤔 It doesn’t make sense to ask I don’t think.
So really the US System counts the spaces up, then the spaces down as stories. Ground is the same as 1, and Basement is same as -1. I have never ever seen a building (or elevator) with a number line in it or with negative numbers. NOW if you put altitude in the elevator in, say, 10ft increments or so, I would have no choice but to agree with your strange European ways.
I’m pretty sure that format or where the first floor is labeled “1” is the most common where I live.
Labeling the second floor the first floor is frankly insane.
Edit: or maybe we do call the second floor the first floor. Not sure. Still stupid though but it’s not as stupid in my language because we don’t say “floor” but if you’re going to say floor you should count the actual floors.
I agree with the UK one as in Spain we do pretty much the same.
0 index versus 1 index, the classic counting collections conundrum.
My North American mind cannot comprehend the UK version.
“First” floor implies it is the first one. Why does the ground floor get special treatment?
And the fourth floor, it’s the fourth one because there are four of them.
Other countries treat the question more as “how many floors from the ground are you?” than what you’re used to. After all, what floor is 0?
My inner computer scientist likes this framing, and understands its logic. My inner, and much less influential human being, hates it a lot AF.
Even in the CS world, ordinal phrases are still 1-indexed (e.g. the first element of an array vs element 0).
It’s actually pretty common to say 0th index, but it depends a lot on context.
Sure, but that only applies when referring to indices or to the zeroth element specifically.
The one where it says 0 on the elevator?
But in the US way, you’re only one floor from the ground on the first floor. 0 isn’t a floor, it’s literally the ground we put the first floor on.
To reach the 2nd floor you need to go up 2 floors
To reach the 1st floor you need to go up 1 floor
If you go up 0 floors, you’re on floor 0 - aka the ground floor.
The ground floor is still a floor of the building, and it’s the first one you encounter. To me they are interchangeable.
Alright, fair point. Clearly there are merits to both systems (see other answers). If there’s a floor -1 and a floor 1 I’d expect there to be a floor 0 between them, and I don’t think anyone would propose that floor 0 would have you climb down from street level to reach. That’s why it makes sense to have ground floor at 0 to me.
It also might help to call them floor 1, floor 2 etc. instead of first floor, second floor, etc… It’s kind of like how the 20th century is the one going 19xx. So the 20th floor being floor 19 isn’t too farfetched.
What do you mean I’m overthinking this?!
In an elevator, or I guess a lift, what do the buttons that select floors represent the ground floor with? A ‘G’? A “0”?
Both appear and are considered interchangeable
Arrays are indexed from zero - the UK has the only correct naming approach.
So youre telling me you have 3 cookies in front of you, you’d call them the zeroth, first and second cookies?
Someone asks what cookie youre on and you say second having already eaten 2.5?
I am aghast that you assume I use floats anywhere in my code. The cookie has an eaten flag and in one tick it goes from false to true. If you want partial cookie eating tracking we can plan a future update.
How’d y’all communicate with builders? Do you say this building has 0 floors to say that it’s si gle story and say that it has 1 floor to mean that it’s 2-story?
Iirc it used to be that the ground floor was semi-basement, with windows at the ground level hence the name.
In my head for them ground level is just dirt and doesn’t have a proper floor.
Well in my native language the word for ground floor would translate to something like “next to ground” and above that would be first floor which would be “above ceiling” in direct translation
Because it has a special place, i.e. it’s leveled with the ground, so anything above it you need to climb up, anything below it you need to climb down.
Think of it this way, floor is a synonym with level, if I asked you to tell me which level the ground is at the only logical answer is 0, if you say the ground is at level 1 that implies that the first basement is level 0 which sounds ridiculous.
If you’re in an elevator that has the numbers from -5 to 15, where is the only logical place for the ground to be at?
So to preface this, it’s all arbitrary so there isn’t a right or wrong as long as it’s consistent.
The question might be better phrased this way: are we numbering distance or counting spaces?
If the year is 2024, what century is it? How about if the year is 700? How about if the year is "-700” (700 BCE)? Now which century is the zero century? 🤔 It doesn’t make sense to ask I don’t think.
So really the US System counts the spaces up, then the spaces down as stories. Ground is the same as 1, and Basement is same as -1. I have never ever seen a building (or elevator) with a number line in it or with negative numbers. NOW if you put altitude in the elevator in, say, 10ft increments or so, I would have no choice but to agree with your strange European ways.
No storey is special, no one is special.
Imo the first floor should be the ground floor and the floor above that is the second floor.
It’s okay to be wrong.
I’m pretty sure that format or where the first floor is labeled “1” is the most common where I live.
Labeling the second floor the first floor is frankly insane.
Edit: or maybe we do call the second floor the first floor. Not sure. Still stupid though but it’s not as stupid in my language because we don’t say “floor” but if you’re going to say floor you should count the actual floors.
Not stupid in the slightest.
Basement -1
Ground 0
First floor 1
Second floor 2
It makes sense to me, but it’s also what I’m used to.
The ground floor has the first floor in the building though.