Re: logical column ordering

Hi,

On 23.3.2015 18:01, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:57 AM, Alvaro Herrera
> <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
>> However, there's a difference between making a query silently given
>> different results, and breaking it completely forcing the user to
>> re-study how to write it. I think the latter is better. In that light
>> we should just drop attnum as a column name, and use something else:
>> maybe (attidnum, attlognum, attphysnum). So all queries in the wild
>> would be forced to be updated, but we would not silently change
>> semantics instead.
>
> +1 for that approach. Much better to break all of the third-party
> code out there definitively than to bet on which attribute people are
> going to want to use most commonly.
>
> I'm a little confused as to the status of this patch. It's marked as
> Waiting on Author in the CommitFest application, and the last patch
> version was posted in December. The fact that the new CommitFest
> application encourages people to blindly move things to the next CF
> instead of forcing patch authors to reopen the record when they update
> the patch is, IMHO, not good. It's just going to lead to the CF
> application filling up with things that the authors aren't really
> working on. We've got enough work to do with the patches that are
> actually under active development.

The last version of the patch was submitted on 24/2 by me. Not sure why
it's not listed in the CF app, but it's here:

http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/54EBB312.7090000@2ndquadrant.com

I'm working on a new version of the patch, based on the ideas that were
mentioned in this thread. I plan to post a new version within a few
days, hopefully.

Anyway, it's obvious this patch won't make it into 9.5 - it's a lot of
subtle changes on many places, so it's not suitable for the last
commitfest. But the feedback is welcome, of course.

--
Tomas Vondra http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services