Re: TOAST versus toast

Peter Smith <smithpb2250(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> During some recent reviews, I came across some comments mentioning "toast" ...
> TOAST is a PostgreSQL acronym for "The Oversized-Attribute Storage
> Technique" [1].

It is indeed an acronym, but usages such as "toasting" are all over
our code and docs, as you see. I question whether changing that
to "TOASTing" improves readability. I agree that consistently
saying "TOAST table" not "toast table" is a good idea, but I'm
not quite convinced that removing every last lower-case occurrence
is a win, especially in these combined forms.

> - "toasted" becomes "TOASTed".
> - "toastable" becomes "TOAST-able"

Those two choices seem inconsistent...

> - "untoasted" becomes "un-TOASTed"
> - "detoasted" is unchanged (and so is "detoast")

Hm, there seems a risk of confusion between "not toasted" (a
statement of fact about the contents of a Datum) versus "detoasting"
(the act of expanding a toasted datum to full form). I'd prefer
to say "not toasted" than "untoasted" because the latter feels like
it could also mean "detoasted". (And as I write this para, I'm
having a hard time wanting to upcase the words, which reinforces
my doubts about s/toast/TOAST/g.)

regards, tom lane