Hacker News Reader

> Well it’s no longer Boolean because you now have 3 states for that field. So why not use a char, U/Y/N with the default being U?

Well because instead of using a type that exactly encodes the concept of "yes/no/unset" (nullable boolean), you'd be using a type that encodes "any 1-character text, with arbitrary meaning and most of the values being nonsensical"

View on HN

The problem is you need a boat load of additional code to cover unset. Not just in SQL (syntax is different for NULL than it is for comparing any other type) but often also in your importing language too (eg some languages will cast NULL to a nil value that can actually raise exceptions or even crash your application if not handled correctly).

Capturing those edge cases is non-trivial compared checking the value of a char.

In an idea world your unit tests and CI pipelines would catch all of those but that depends on well written tests. Thus in my experience having fewer hidden traps from the outset is automatically a better design than one that perfectly fits an academic theory but is harder to support in practice.

It'd probably be more sane than trying to stuff a 3VL into bunch of 2VL operations, because you refuse to acknowledge that you don't actually have a 2VL type

Reply on news.ycombinator.com