[xquery-talk] Everything is a sequence ...so ....

Ihe Onwuka ihe.onwuka at gmail.com
Sat Jan 25 01:49:53 PST 2014


On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 9:01 AM, Michael Kay <mike at saxonica.com> wrote:
>
> The eq operator is easier to optimize because the type conversions it does are much simpler (in particular, exploiting indexes is more difficult). However, because 90% of the time people use "=", optimizers are likely to work hard at it even though it's intrinsically more difficult.
>
> But getting into the habit of using "eq" is something I would recommend because of the better diagnostics when you get things wrong.
>

I try, but you can stare an awful long time at

 someString eq ('stringA','stringB')

and not realise what is wrong.

Mentally we are not attuned to distinguishing eq from =.

I wonder whether it would have been better if eq were = and =  were
=>, but then I guess you'd have to worry about how to deal with the
other comparison operators as well.



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