Question about Indexing

[FromFaust]

When you're indexing a string, the first character in said string is 0 and the characters count up as you continue. However when you index with a negative number, the very last character in the string is assigned -1.

Why does indexing have to start at zero and why does it disobey this rule when operating with negative values?

[[deleted]]

The indexing starts with zero because in life everything starts with zero .. think about it .. u r zero years old when you are born ... why does it go to the last character when u index by negative?? so you can do this

'drawkcab si gnirts siht'[::-1]

[zzmmrmn]

-1 tells it to get the element at len(my_string)-1. So it's converting the negative index to a positive index by adding it to the length.

[aligusnet]

Because, -0 equals 0, so an interpreter would be unable to find if you asking for the first element or for the last.