I find that in practice the amount of +-1 is about the same for zero-based and one-based indexing. Each has situations it is better suited for. For example, iterating a list backwards is nicer with one-based indexes.

That is absolutely not the case.

Numerical loops in Lua are inclusive:

    for i=1,#t do t[i]=0 end

With 0-based indexes, and that numerical loop format, it would be minus-one everywhere:

    for i=1,#t-1 do ...

These days all you gotta do is ask your local LLM to write you a Lua with 0-based indexing. Sure beats complaining about 1-based indexing on HN until the end of time.