Re: [HACKERS] Happy column dropping

Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>

From: Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
To: Don Baccus <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
Cc: Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, PostgreSQL Development <pgsql-hackers@postgreSQL.org>
Date: 2000-01-25T02:48:46Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
> I was unaware that other folks had pointed to the copy/rename approach
> earlier as being a possible means of implementation.  I thought you'd
> pulled that one out of your hat.  Still, more advance discussion would've
> perhaps led to other approaches to investigate, just as discussion
> now is doing.
> 
> I'm going to be blunt: implementation of "drop column" by doing a copy/rename
> isn't something one expects of a competitive commercial-quality RDBMS.
> 
> Perhaps it's the best we can expect of Postgres, though.  If so, so be it.

Maybe that is true.  Having phantom column all over the code is going to
be a mess, and hardly worth it considering how many developers there are
and how many _big_ items still have to be done.

Messing up code for one feature is rarely worth it.

-- 
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