Re: So what's null then if it's not nothing?

Alexandr Savinov wrote:
> What people cannot understand is that we cannot simply disable nulls. It
> is too simplistic point of view. It is not possible to say that we will
> not use nulls and that is all. Why? Because the notion of absence exists
> in almost any data model. We need to know if an object exists or not. If
> yes, then we get some value. If not then we get null.

"absence exists in almost any data model?" That makes no sense to my ears. If you don't know something why try to type it in as a fact (outside some logistical efficiency considerations)?. "We need to know if an object exists or not.." - in that case directly _encode_ the fact as to whether the said object exists or not, as you would anything else. Yes the notion of absence is extremely important, but it is absolutely no different to the notion of colour, size, shape, or indeed any property. Why the desire to treat it any differently? Received on Thu Nov 17 2005 - 16:26:42 CET