[ars]

MySQL chose correctly, not maciej.

The coercing bin('y') to 0 makes no sense though - I agree with you there.

[drivebyacct2]

Those two statements conflict with each other and I don't see how you reconcile those without placing blame on MySQL.

[ars]

Every product has bugs.

The philosophy of attempting to work when possible (coercion and other things) is good.

They clearly messed up here, but it doesn't mean they should never try to coerce values.

Even the warning when you try it makes no sense (what double?):

   1292: Truncated incorrect DOUBLE value: 'y  '

It's clearly a bug, and not something fundamental to MySQL.

[drivebyacct2]

Sure, I think we agree. I agree it's a mistake here and should be corrected, I wasn't advocating removing type coercion by any means, nor do I think that this one-off (?) incident is worthy of making broad statements about MySQL.