[postgis-devel] Spatial relationships not defined should return null

[Chris Hodgson]

On 12-02-10 03:59 AM, Jose Carlos Martinez wrote:
>
> I think PostGIS is making an effort in the 2.0 release to follow 
> standards in a more strict way, but Lately I dont understand the 
> PostGIS policy about standards, sometimes PostGIS follows standards 
> sometimes doesnt as I already discussed with the ST_StartPoint, 
> ST_GeometryN, etc. in a previous email. and what is worse from my 
> point o view sometimes without a logical reason.
>
> Jose

Sorry, but I take issue with your claim of lacking a logical reason. 
Maintaining compatibility with user's applications that may be relying 
on these "non-standard" behaviors for the past ten or so years has 
significantly more value than complying to minor details defined by 
standard which no-one has implemented entirely accurately to that level 
of detail. Were these details in error originally? Quite likely. But 
now, their legacy IS the standard. And 640k of memory should be enough 
for anyone ;)

Chris