This is a bit of a philosophical question, I guess...

Say I execute this query in SQL Server:

SELECT mygroup, COUNT(mycolumn)
FROM mytable
GROUP BY mygroup

The counted column contains NULLs and the ANSI_WARNINGS option is ON, so I get:

Warning: Null value is eliminated by an aggregate or other SET operation.

I understand what this means. And there are lots of ways to 'fix' this warning. But... why is it complaining in the first place?

Skipping any NULLs is all COUNT(mycolumn) does! If I wanted to count all rows, including NULLs for this column, I would have used COUNT(*) . Isn't it clear that it's my intention to skip NULLs?

I guess the ANSI standard demands this warning, even in this obvious case. Why?!