From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com>
Cc: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
Cc: Daniel Verite <daniel@manitou-mail.org>
Cc: PostgreSQL Development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Cc: Vik Fearing <vik.fearing@2ndquadrant.com>
Subject: Re: popcount
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 10:34:10 -0500
Message-ID: <338981.1610984050@sss.pgh.pa.us> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <e48355d3-efaf-e762-fffa-4b2191680292@enterprisedb.com>
References: <20201230105535.GJ13234@fetter.org>
<5ea2932e-50f5-4a74-9550-5e3291b6652b@manitou-mail.org>
<20201230164108.GK13234@fetter.org>
<eb416bd3-9ee2-8a81-8cd4-d61baaf93ec2@enterprisedb.com>
<20210111161354.GA8721@fetter.org>
<e48355d3-efaf-e762-fffa-4b2191680292@enterprisedb.com>
Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com> writes:
> [ assorted nits ]
At the level of bikeshedding ... I quite dislike using the name "popcount"
for these functions. I'm aware that some C compilers provide primitives
of that name, but I wouldn't expect a SQL programmer to know that;
without that context the name seems pretty random and unintuitive.
Moreover, it invites confusion with SQL's use of "pop" to abbreviate
"population" in the statistical aggregates, such as var_pop().
Perhaps something along the lines of count_ones() or count_set_bits()
would be more apropos.
regards, tom lane
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
reply via email
To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Cc: tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, peter.eisentraut@enterprisedb.com, david@fetter.org, daniel@manitou-mail.org, vik.fearing@2ndquadrant.com
Subject: Re: popcount
In-Reply-To: <338981.1610984050@sss.pgh.pa.us>
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
This inbox is served by DDX for PostgreSQL; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox