this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah, but if it is about being an admin or not, hence the bool, it’d be idiomatic and reasonable to assume it to be false if we have no data. Unless we want to try and allow admin access based on no data. Having three states for a simple binary state is weird. And if it is not about just being an admin or not, the bool is inherently a too limited choice for representation.

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Depends on your requirements.

If the admin status needs to be checked in a database, but most actions don't require authentication at all, it's pointless to waste resources checking and it would be left null until the first action that needs the information checks it and fills it in as true or false.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

I don’t really follow you there, wouldn’t it be exactly the opposite and wouldn’t checking for nulls be, as a premise, more wasteful? But doesn’t really matter, time to digress. I’m conventionally educated as an engineer so what I know and find reasonable today might be outdated and too strict for most contemporary stuff.