alter database without shutting down !?

first, congratulations to all for the 7.1 release, good work.

second, I've found (some years ago to be honest) that pgsql can ALTER
TABLE while the table is widely available for all users...

this strike me as pretty bad/dangerous/confusing/messy (even from the
POV of implementation)

should I supposed to do something like:
ALTER DATABASE CLOSE
or
ALTER DATABASE SHUTDOWN [options] (simil oracle)

before doing changes to the definition of tables ?

someone can say this is a feature, don't think so, even then I
think that ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN could be implemented a *lot*
more easily with this method.

(and requiring this operation to enter DDL sound very logical)

regards,
sergio

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