The Question and Answer Board

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

The problem with free-style is that people will want to put in partial usernames. Like "Zeev" instead of "Zeev Hed", which means using LIKE, which is horrible, since 'LIKE %Zeev%' won't use an index. Or the comparably difficult-to-type "IH Yoda [Bob]".

I really do hate to ever use any kind of input that requires exactness from the user. But I can also see a case for "Well, if they want to use it, they'll have to be exact and the few who will use it won't mind so much that exactness is required."

Alias is actually indexed but I think the only time we use it is for sorted lists.