Re: BUG #6028: age() function output contracts "months", but not any other units.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 19:02, Tom Lane wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>> On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
>>> Does anyone feel this is worth changing?  I am concerned such a change
>>> would break many user applications.
>
>> The backward compatibility problem is pretty icky, but I don't much
>> like the idea of leaving it as-is, either.
>
> ISTM that changing interval's output formatting would create far too
> many problems to be justifiable for such a purely cosmetic issue.

I almost entirely agree with you except....

My current $dayjob is working in an industry where details and aesthetics
are everything. We will spend thousands of hours of processor time just
to make sure than the sheen on an animal's fur will suggest "healthy and
luxuriant" rather than "warm and moist". It's about artistic polish.

If people are agreeing that this is not the intended, desrired or
specified output for this function, then make with the polish. It isn't
the first, and won't be the last, time that something has potentially
broken compatibility in postgres.

EUR0.02

Regards

Martin.