AW: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive

Hello Tom,

I don't mind the exact wording, but it should be semantically correct.

Order by date is ascending (as in SQL).

I would propose to change the wording, perhaps like Newest to oldest (or your suggestion) and make sure, that the selected order shows up in the results.

It is only part of the WebSite, so I don't fear any automation difficulties.

Hans Buschmann

________________________________
Von: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 7. Mai 2023 16:05
An: Hans Buschmann
Cc: pgsql-bugs(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Betreff: Re: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive

PG Bug reporting form <noreply(at)postgresql(dot)org> writes:
> When changing the order of the result set from "Rank" to "Reverse Date" I
> observed that "Date" gives the results from newest to oldest while "Reverse
> Date" gives them from oldest to newest.
> This seems to me a mismatch and quite confusing.
> The semantics of Date and Reverse Date should be corrected (exchanged)

It's been like that for a decade or two, and you are the first to
complain AFAIR. Changing it at this point would doubtless add a
lot more confusion than it subtracts.

We could perhaps change to some other terms entirely, like
"Newest First" and "Oldest First", but I'm not convinced that
that's an improvement either.

regards, tom lane