Re: Using 128-bit integers for sum, avg and statistics aggregates

On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 7:57 PM, Jim Nasby <Jim(dot)Nasby(at)bluetreble(dot)com> wrote:
> On 1/2/15, 4:18 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>
>> Heikki Linnakangas<hlinnakangas(at)vmware(dot)com> writes:
>>>
>>> >On 01/02/2015 11:41 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >>What might be worth trying is establishing a hard-and-fast boundary
>>>> >>between C land and SQL land, with bitwise names in C and bytewise
>>>> >> names
>>>> >>in SQL. This would mean, for example, that int4pl() would be renamed
>>>> >> to
>>>> >>int32pl() so far as the C function goes, but the function's SQL name
>>>> >> would
>>>> >>remain the same.
>>>
>>> >I don't like that. I read int4pl as the function implementing plus
>>> >operator for the SQL-visible int4 datatype, so int4pl makes perfect
>>> > sense.
>>
>> I agree with that so far as the SQL name for the function goes, which is
>> part of why I don't think we should rename anything at the SQL level.
>> But right now at the C level, it's unclear how things should be named,
>> and I think we don't really want a situation where the most appropriate
>> name is so unclear and potentially confusing. We're surviving fine with
>> "int32" in C meaning "int4" in SQL so far as the type names go, so why not
>> copy that naming approach for function names?
>
>
> Realistically, how many non-developers actually use the intXX SQL names? I
> don't think I've ever seen it; the only places I recall seeing it done are
> code snippets on developer blogs. Everyone else uses smallint, etc.
>
> I know we're all gun-shy about this after standard_conforming_strings, but
> that affected *everyone*. I believe this change would affect very, very few
> users.
>
> Also, note that I'm not talking about removing anything yet; that would come
> later.

I think it's naive to think the intXX names wouldn't be used just
because they're postgres-specific. Especially when pgadmin3 generates
them.

Many scripts of mine have them because pgadmin3 generated them, many
others have them because I grew accustomed to using them, especially
when I don't care being postgres-specific. float8 vs double precision
and stuff like that.

Lets not generalize anecdote (me using them), lets just pay attention
to the fact that lots of tools expose them (pgadmin3 among them).