Re: variables prefix - ?variable vs. $variable

On Tue, Aug 31, 2004 at 05:50:13AM -0700, Dirk-Willem van Gulik wrote:

> Simply avoiding it confuses the developers less; makes the learning curve
> easier and costs us nothing at this stage. 

First, it might confuse *some* developer less. Other developers won't
care because they aren't implementing or integrating with SQL.

Second, I don't know how, say, "^foo" or "+foo" is an easier learning
curve than "?foo". A variable is something unknown and "?" strongly
implies that for many people, I suspect.

Third, it might not cost us, WG members, anything but it imposes a
cost on others. How is it not a cost to change what seems to be one of
the few actual syntactic conventions in this entire space? I think
that's a cost and a pretty big one.

Not every triple store or query processor is backed by SQL, and few SW
applications I've been around have to integrate this deeply with SQL
-- this feels to me, with all due respect, like the tail wagging the
dog.

Best,
Kendall Clark

Received on Tuesday, 31 August 2004 13:11:52 UTC