Re: Why so few built-in range types?

* Peter Eisentraut (peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net) wrote:
> - ip4 really only stores a single address, not a netmask, not sometimes
> a netmask, or sometimes a range, or sometimes a network and an address,
> or whatever. That really seems like the most common use case, and no
> matter what you do with the other types, some stupid netmask will appear
> in your output when you least expect it.

This is definitely one of the funny complications with our built-in
types. I don't feel that's a feature either. Nor do I consider it
'worse' that we have a type that actually makes sense. :) Regardless of
who developed it, it's simply trying to do too much in one type. I'm
also not convinced that our built-in types even operate in a completely
sensible way when you consider all the interactions you could have
between the different 'types' of that 'type', but I'll admit that I
haven't got examples or illustrations of that- something better exists
and is what I use and encourage others to use.

In some ways, I would say this is akin to our built-in types vs.
PostGIS. My argument isn't about features or capabilities in either
case (though those are valuable too), it's about what's 'right' and
makes sense, to me anyway.

Thanks,

Stephen