[pgsql-admin] "Soft-hitting" the 1600 column limit

Hello!

I'm trying to support an application in production at work, and for some
obscure reason the developer made it drop and re-create a column
periodically.

I know this is a bad practice (to say the least), and I'm telling them to
fix it, but after the 1600th drop/add cycle, PostgreSQL starts giving out
the column limit error:

ERROR: tables can have at most 1600 columns

I reproduced this behavior in PostgreSQL 10.3 with a simple bash loop and a
two-column table, one of which is fixed and the other is repeatedly dropped
and re-created until the 1600 limit is reached.

To me this is pretty cool, since I can use this limit as leverage to push
the developers to the right path, but should Postgres be doing that? It's
as if it doesn't decrement some counter when a column is dropped.

Many thanks!
Bruno

----------
“Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one.”

- Stella Adler