`Join()` formula should not apply to blank entries

[Connor_McCormick1]

One of the interesting things about Coda is it gets to assume that its users don’t have a programming background, and then it gets to choose how its formulas should work. It’s resulted in them being able to rethink a lot of things.

I think this is a unique case where the choice of the commonly known pattern could have been inspected more. And yet, I’m only 40% that what I described is the better way, though I’m 70% that there might be a better way.

I could be wrong if:

1. It turns out non-programming-background users expect and prefer the 1.B..2 output.
2. If there’s something you can’t represent using the Join() semantics
3. If there is an equally common usecase for Join() where the new semantics I described create the need for equally complicated formulas

Haha… and also Coda basically never implements my formula change requests, only occasionally implementing new formulas, and never to my knowledge changing the functionality of old ones — which makes sense!

Here’s a formula I’d really love, if Coda has to prioritize:

`Only()` formula

A lot of times I filter some table and expect that there will only be a single result. E.g. [Subscriptions].Filter([Client] = thisRow and [Active?]).First() To get that final result, I often call First(), but First() has two problems: It doesn’t check that my filter only returns one result It doesn’t convey to the person reading my formula that there should only be one result. If there was an Only() formula, it could do both those things. E.g. [Subscriptions].Filter([Client] = thisRow and …