Re: Progress on fast path sorting, btree index creation time

Excerpts from Jim Nasby's message of mié feb 01 19:12:58 -0300 2012:
> On Jan 26, 2012, at 9:32 PM, Robert Haas wrote:
> > But if we want to put it on a diet, the first thing I'd probably be
> > inclined to lose is the float4 specialization. Some members of the
> > audience will recall that I take dim view of floating point arithmetic
> > generally, but I'll concede that there are valid reasons for using
> > float8. I have a harder time coming up with a good reason to use
> > float4 - ever, for anything you care about. So I would be inclined to
> > think that if we want to trim this back a bit, maybe that's the one to
> > let go. If we want to be even more aggressive, the next thing I'd
> > probably lose is the optimization of multiple sortkey cases, on the
> > theory that single sort keys are probably by far the most common
> > practical case.
>
> I do find float4 to be useful, though it's possible that my understanding is flawed…
>
> We end up using float to represent ratios in our database; things that really, honest to God do NOT need to be exact.

But then, do you sort using those ratios?

--
Álvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)commandprompt(dot)com>
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support