Re: json api WIP patch

On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 4:10 PM, Andrew Dunstan <andrew(at)dunslane(dot)net> wrote:

>
> On 02/04/2013 10:47 AM, Robert Haas wrote:
>
>>
>> The SQL standards considerations seem worth thinking about, too.
>> We've certainly gone through a lot of pain working toward eliminating
>> => as an operator name, and if the SQL standard has commandeered ->
>> for some purpose or other, I'd really rather not add to the headaches
>> involved should we ever decide to reclaim it.
>>
>
>
> OK, but I'd like to know what is going to be safe. There's no way to
> future-proof the language. I'm quite prepared to replace -> with something
> else, and if I do then ->> will need to be adjusted accordingly, I think.
>
> My suggestion would be ~> and ~>>. I know David Wheeler didn't like that
> on the ground that some fonts elevate ~ rather than aligning it in the
> middle as most monospaced fonts do, but I'm tempted just to say "then use a
> different font." Other possibilities that come to mind are +> and +>>,
> although I think they're less attractive. But I'll be guided by the
> consensus, assuming there is one ;-)
>
> As a user I would be much in favor of just functions and no additional
operators if the sole difference is syntactical. I think custom operators
are much harder to remember than function names (assuming reasonably well
chosen function names).

Now Robert seems to suggest that there will also be speed / planner
difference which seems sad (I would have expected operators to be just
syntactical sugar for specially named functions and once we are past the
parser there should be no difference).