Re: Re: Proposed changing the definition of decade for date_trunc and extract

On 08/01/2014 05:32 PM, David G Johnston wrote:
> Any supporting arguments for 1-10 = 1st decade other than technical
> perfection? I guess if you use data around and before 1AD you care about
> this more, and rightly so, but given sound arguments for both methods the
> one more useful to more users who I suspect dominantly care about years >
> 1900.

Well, I think most people in casual speech would consider "The 80's" to
be 1980 to 1989. But if you ask a historian, the decade is 1981 to 1990
(or, if they're an American social historian, 1981 to 1988, but that's a
different topic). So both ways of counting have valid, solid arguments
behind them.

> So -1 to change for breaking backward compatibility and -1 because the
> current behavior seems to be more useful in everyday usage.

If we were adding a new "decade" feature, then I'd probably side with
Mike. However, it's hard for me to believe that this change is worth
breaking backwards compatibility.

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com