Two small points of feedback

[Brian Goetz]

> My theory is that its because the numbers are discrete. "From Monday
> to Wednesday" is closed in normal language, whereas "from 09:00 to
> 17:00" is not. Similarly "the TV channels 1 to 4" is closed, but "from
> 1.3 to 8.6" is more likely to be half-open.

And what about

   string.substring(0, 10)

or

   Arrays.sort(a, 0, 10)

or...?   These have discrete numbers too.

Given that either approach will be "surprising" to someone when taken 
out of context (with 10M Java developers, someone will be surprised at 
*anything*), I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to argue against 
adopting the way the vast majority of similar JDK mechanisms work?