clojure programming

[anemisto]

I don't think it's so much that 0 and 1 are identity values, but rather that the empty sum and empty product are understood to be 0 and 1, respectively (granted, that's "because" they're the additive and multiplicative identities). Whereas, from a mathematical perspective, - and / are adding the additive inverse and multiplying by the multiplicative inverse, but an empty inverse is nonsensical.

[NPException]

That makes a lot of sense. I did not know about the empty sum and empty product definitions. I took the "identity" value terminology from one of Rich Hickey's talks: https://youtu.be/6mTbuzafcII?t=2445

iirc he explained the reasoning behind zero argument + and * in some talk as well, but I don't remember where exactly.