specific languages might reuse the word array for abstracting underlying optimizations, but calling array an indexed object doesn't really change what an array is, no more than calling fish a dolphin change it from being a mammal
also, a pointer is a range only when paired with a type. otherwise a pointer is the index of a cell within the address space, and you want the address space zero starting not because it's convenient, but because otherwise you wouldn't be able to reference the last cell (since it overflow your word size) unless you do additional stuff to normalize the one starting address to zero back again
using cell deliberately because memory can be accessed by word, byte, page etc
anyway. what you call a contiguous memory area that have a type and can be navigated by offset? that's an array. well then, are you going to use the pointer convention for it or just have the +1 to be removed at every access operation?
and we're back again to what an array is. arbitrary memory constructs that are called array shouldn't be taken into account for they are the one causing the whole confusion we're into and we shouldn't be, because an array is an array and an indexed object is not
Gotcha. Perhaps the article would be better off using a word like list instead of array, to avoid the additional semantics that C attaches to that word.
In any case, I think I agree that dereferencing an address should return the byte to the right for the reason that you mention. That's a solid point, and I totally didn't think of that :) That's a really important property of the dereferencing operation.
I still feel like that doesn't make the mental model of memory-addresses-are-gaps-between-bytes any less valuable, though, nor does it mean that abstractions built on top of this memory model need to use the same conventions as the underlying system - that's the point of abstractions, after all :)
^ there, semantic issue resolved
specific languages might reuse the word array for abstracting underlying optimizations, but calling array an indexed object doesn't really change what an array is, no more than calling fish a dolphin change it from being a mammal
also, a pointer is a range only when paired with a type. otherwise a pointer is the index of a cell within the address space, and you want the address space zero starting not because it's convenient, but because otherwise you wouldn't be able to reference the last cell (since it overflow your word size) unless you do additional stuff to normalize the one starting address to zero back again
using cell deliberately because memory can be accessed by word, byte, page etc
anyway. what you call a contiguous memory area that have a type and can be navigated by offset? that's an array. well then, are you going to use the pointer convention for it or just have the +1 to be removed at every access operation?
and we're back again to what an array is. arbitrary memory constructs that are called array shouldn't be taken into account for they are the one causing the whole confusion we're into and we shouldn't be, because an array is an array and an indexed object is not