Re: Range Types: << >> -|- ops vs empty range

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 12:37 PM, Jeff Davis <pgsql(at)j-davis(dot)com> wrote:
> Right now it's #3, and I lean pretty strongly toward keeping it. Without
> #3, people will get confused when fairly simple operations fail in a
> data-dependent way (at runtime). With #3, people will run into problems
> only in situations where it is fairly dubious to have an empty range
> anyway (and therefore likely a real error), such as finding ranges "left
> of" an empty range.

That seems pretty apropos to me.

> Otherwise, I'd prefer #1 to #2. I think #2 is a bad path to take, and
> we'll end up with a lot of unintuitive and error-prone operators.

I think back to your essay on the nonintuitiveness of NULL
(<http://thoughts.j-davis.com/2009/08/02/what-is-the-deal-with-nulls/>),
and suggest the thought that picking #2 would add to the already
existent confusion.
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