Re: Strict-typing benefits/costs

Ken Johanson <pg-user(at)kensystem(dot)com> writes:
> For case 1, regarding type safety: we know use of LIKE (and SUBSTR)
> requires *implicit or explicit* conversion to a text type. Why require
> that explicitly?

Because it's way too easy to burn yourself with implicit conversions.
Cases comparable to the one mentioned (current_date < 2017-11-17
silently doing something very different than the user expected) have
been cropping up every month or two for *years* --- try trolling the
PG list archives for awhile for examples. After you've wasted a day or
three chasing a problem like that, or pehaps had your app fail in the
field because of a problem like that, you'll realize that having to
write a few explicit casts is a small price to pay for not having such
booby-traps in the system.

As for the lack of a compatibility switch, we would probably have
provided one if we could do so reasonably; but a large part of the
change consisted of altering the initial contents of pg_cast and some
other system catalogs. There isn't any good way to flip that on and
off.

regards, tom lane