Re: ALTER TYPE 3: add facility to identify further no-work cases

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:42 AM, Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
>>> OK. I was thinking that instead moving this into
>>> eval_const_expressions(), we just make the logic in
>>> find_coercion_pathway() call the "exemptor" function (or whatever we
>>> call it) right around here:
>>
>> No, no, no, no.  Didn't you read yesterday's discussion?  parse_coerce
>> is entirely the wrong place for this.
>
> I not only read it, I participated in it.

To put that another way, there's a difference between reading
something and agreeing with it. I did the former, but not the latter.
It seems to me that this discussion is unnecessarily antagonistic.
Is it not OK for me to have a different idea about which way to go
with something than you do?

My personal view is that we ought to try to be increasing the number
of places where type modifiers behave like they're really part of the
type, rather than being an afterthought that we deal with when
convenient and otherwise ignore. Otherwise, I see the chances of any
substantive improvements in our type system as being just about zero.

However, the larger point here is simply this: I'm trying to make some
progress on reviewing and, where appropriate, committing the patches
that were submitted for this CommitFest. I'd like to try to avoid the
phenomenon where we're tripping over each other's feet. We're not
making out very well on that front at the moment.

--
Robert Haas
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