Hi Alan,

> My observation is driven by the number of people who are migrating
> from MySQL and other databases where it IS legal to test for NULL
> with the equality operator. At times I think that sticking to a
> "standard" is making us look like we are out of step with everyone
> else and certainly out of step with people's expectations. Oracle
> and MS might be bad at some things but they don't let standards per
> se drive there implementation. We all know that they diverge
> frequently from the standard.

But I don't know if that should be a reason for us to do the same.
I would have no trouble explaining to a MySQL user why "if ( MyField
= NULL )" is Bad (TM). I'm only having trouble explaining that while
"if ( MyField = NULL )" is bad, "set MyField = NULL" is hunky-dory.


Greetings,
Paul Vinkenoog