Dijkstra has a certain tone. He can make his opinions sound almost like a mathematical proof. But when you dig into it, he just says 0-based is "nicer".

The points he makes are so extremely minor... You could just as easily say that natural language and mathematical convention are index-1.

I never understood the fascination with preferring "the element at zero offset from the start" to "the first element" - and I don't think djiskarta makes a compelling argument.