Re: Re: [BUGS] BUG #8128: pg_dump (>= 9.1) failed while dumping a scheme named "old" from PostgreSQL 8.4

On 05/01/2013 06:14 PM, David Fetter wrote:
> On Wed, May 01, 2013 at 11:12:28AM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> writes:
>>> According to SQL:2003 and SQL:2008 (and the draft standard, if
>>> that matters) in section 5.2 of Foundation, both NEW and OLD are
>>> reserved words, so we're going to need to re-reserve them to
>>> comply.
>>
>> We don't and won't.
>
> Not so fast or so definite, if you please.
>
> I've got a GSoC project in that implements things with both of these
> keywords, and doubtless others will use other keywords either this
> coming (9.4) cycle or in a later one.

past history has shown that this is relatively rare and almost always it
was possible to find a way around - not sure why we need to panic in
advance?

>
> If you want to have a discussion about the timing, that is a perfectly
> reasonable discussion to have. Peremptorily saying, "don't and won't"
> is not a great way to operate, however tempting it may be for you.
>
> There is a case to be made, and I'm making it here, for pre-reserving
> all the keywords and erroring out with "Feature not implemented" for
> those not yet implemented. This would keep us, and more importantly
> our user base, from wondering when the next random change to the SQL
> language would affect them.

as per the discussion on IRC - this would break applications left and
right for no real reason and no good, and I don't think hypothetical
features that have not even fully discused warrant anything like that.
Also this would be an uphill battle for no good (ie every few years when
a new spec comes out we break apps for a feature we might geht 10 years
later?)

>
> I'd suggest doing this over about 3 releases in the sense of warning
> people at the appropriate juncture--I'm guessing at least CREATE,
> ALTER, pg_dump(all) and pg_upgrade would be involved. Three releases
> is just a suggestion intended to start a discussion.
>
>> There are very many other keywords that are less reserved in
>> Postgres than in the spec; this is a good thing.
>
> How is it a good thing? Help me understand.

why is breaking random applications or making it harder for people to
migrate from other databases without any reason a good thing?

Stefan