> > > > But suggesting that Jonathan should work on implementing general purpose > arrays seems to fall outside the scope of this discussion, since the result > of such work wouldn't even fill the need Jonathan is targeting for here. > > Every comment I have made so far I have argued that the v1 work doesn’t > need to do some things, but that the limitations proposed so far are not > real requirements; there is a big difference between what “could be > allowed” and what is implemented day one… I am pushing back on what “could > be allowed”, so far every justification has been that it slows down the ANN > work… > > Simple examples of this already exists in C* (every example could be > enhanced logically, we just have yet to put in the work) > > * updating a element of a list is only allowed for multi-cell > * appending to a list is only allowed for multi-cell > * etc. > > By saying that the type "shall not support", you actively block future > work and future possibilities... >
I am coming around strongly to the `VECTOR FLOAT[n]` option. This gives Jonathan the simplest path right now with ths ANN work, while also ensuring the CQL API gets the best future potential. With `VECTOR FLOAT[n]` the 'vector' is the ml sugar that means non-null and frozen, and that allows both today and in the future, as desired, for its implementation to be entirely different to `FLOAT[n]`. This addresses a number of people's concerns that we meet ML's idioms head on. IMHO it feels like it will fit into the ideal future CQL , where all ` primitive[N]` are implemented, and where we have VECTOR FLOAT[n] (and maybe VECTOR BYTE[n]). This will also permit in the future `FROZEN<primitive[n]>` if we wanted nulls in frozen arrays. I think it is totally reasonable that the ANN patch (and Jonathan) is not asked to implement on top of, or towards, other array (or other) new data types. I also think it is correct that we think about the evolution of CQL's API, and how it might exist in the future when we have both ml vectors and general use arrays.
