They way null strings are dealt with under default functions and operators has been a huge industrial mistake. It creates code bloat and mistakes that otherwise

They way null strings are dealt with under default functions and operators has been a huge industrial mistake. It creates code bloat and mistakes that otherwise would be rare. Oracle mostly got it right. And in general, "x <> 5" should be "true" if x is null, and not return null. The justifications are mostly theoretical, not practical. I'd rather have 10 bugs from misuse of theory than 100 from real world. Theorists seem to magnify the "sin" value of theory-related bugs compared to actual bugs. I count them the SAME, and under that scoring formula, we are doing it wrong.