I suspect any changes we make at this point are just going to make things even more confusing, unfortunately. Would dropping the "#" prefix make you less likely to think they're 1-based?

/cc @bradfitz ?

I'm of the opinion we should ensure all parameters are referenced by ordinal, not index.

@kardianos, you mean you advocate for a change, rather than documenting the status quo?

Yes, I would change the message to ensure all parameters match the ordinal position. Simply being SQL is reason enough to think they are 1-based references (ordinal not index).

Sure. We can change it if everybody agrees. Should we preface them all by '$' then? Is that more clear?

CL https://golang.org/cl/31262 mentions this issue.

How about keeping # as the prefix for 0-indexed, but deprecating it; and introducing $ as the prefix for 1-indexed? That'd presumably not break anyone's code unexpectedly, and then everyone could have until Go 1.9 to switch over.

@lpar What do you think of the CL https://golang.org/cl/31262 ? I hope no one is trying to parse the error message mechanically, but if they are, I can include it in a general announcement in a week or two.

I think the improved message would at least have eliminated my confusion after the fact.