On 7/19/2018 12:40 PM, Roy Lambert wrote:
>
> You really shouldn't feed the trolls but since you have
>

Hold on, let me get popcorn before continuing ...

>
> 1. those are both stage names (or nicknames or aliases) not real names, even if they've dropped their real name

Yes, bu i think there are people with single legal name only. Japanese
emperor comes up in google search.


>
> I have yet, in all the years I've been arguing about it, to be given a genuine use case for null <> emptystring. Those I have been given would generally be better satisfied with an additional boolean to indicate wether or not data had been entered. Its also indicative of the "rightness" of my view that so many people default string fields to emptystring ie they dodge the issue.
>

I'm with you here. It might have been be academically correct and now is
part of standard but for string columns it does result in a facepalm a lot.

Things like aggregate functions on empty result set might benefit from
null (i.e. Min(<no records>) is not really 0) but even there value is
rather minimal i think over what you gain.

Raul

Raul

<<Yes, bu i think there are people with single legal name only. Japanese
emperor comes up in google search.>>


It was pointed out to me by Eric (remember him) that there are some cultures where they only have one name. It might be yeah long but only one.

<<I'm with you here. It might have been be academically correct and now is
part of standard but for string columns it does result in a facepalm a lot.>>

In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, in practice there is.

I have a vague memory (possibly wrong) that the original intention was a state flag with a number of different states not just there / null

<<Things like aggregate functions on empty result set might benefit from
null (i.e. Min(<no records>) is not really 0) but even there value is
rather minimal i think over what you gain.>>

And here we see the influence of accountants - can you imaging the uproar if they added up a column of figures and got NULL <vbg>

Its also one of the things that annoys me - add up a row of figures and you do get NULL so we have a special set of functions which operate differently - ah well.

Roy Lambert