Re: TOAST versus toast

On Mon, Mar 17, 2025 at 1:50 PM Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2025 at 7:38 PM Peter Smith <smithpb2250(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > If I understand correctly, the summary is:
> > - Tom: +1 for "TOAST table", but changing all the combined forms is
> > maybe not worth the effort.
> > - DavidJ: Wants to uppercase TOAST only when it refers to 'technique';
> > lowercase otherwise.
> > - RobertT: The verbs should be lowercase (e.g. laser). Each-way bet re
> > David's technique idea.
> > - RobertH: Don't lowercase verbs, but instead try to rewrite these
> > differently where possible.
>
> I'm not sure I agree with this summary of my position. I'm against
> TOASTed, TOAST-able, and un-TOASTed, and in fact it seems to me that
> nobody else who has commented on this proposal likes those either. It
> seems to me that the idea of upper-casting TOAST where it stands alone
> as a separate word may have some support, although not everyone who
> has commented wants to do it in every situation and nobody seems to
> think it is super-important. But as far as I can see, nobody other
> than you is a fan of doing it when a prefix or suffix has been added.
> I don't mean to suggest that your opinion is unimportant, just that,
> in this case, it doesn't seem to have attracted any support from
> others.

Sorry if I've misrepresented your position. And, just for the record,
I'm not "a fan of doing it [capitalizing] when a prefix or suffix has
been added". I know in earlier posts I may have suggested doing that,
but that was me trying to be consistent with usage on the docs page
[1] which I originally took to be the gospel for all these TOAST
related words.

>
> So I would suggest that you either:
>
> (1) drop this patch, or perhaps
> (2) cut it down to something that just changes some or all usages of
> TOAST without prefix or suffix and leaves everything else alone, or
> perhaps
> (3) do (2) but also add some rewording to (3a) avoid needing to use
> prefixed or suffixed forms or (3b) to avoid using TOAST altogether.
>
> I really don't think you're going to get consensus on capitalizing the
> letters TOAST someplace in the middle of a word. I mean, there's
> probably precedent both ways. You get tasered by the police, not
> TASERed by the police; but I think you would write that you were
> SMSing with a colleague rather than smsing with a colleague. But as
> you say, "everybody wrote what they believe is correct," so there is
> probably not going to be support for radically upending our existing
> conventions, and deTOASTing is definitely a minority position. If you
> really want to change something, getting rid of the few instances of
> minority positions like that might be palatable, but something that
> involves replacing a lot of the forms people chose with other forms
> seems less likely to achieve consensus.

Thanks for your suggestions. At this point option (1) is looking most
attractive. Probably, I will just withdraw the CF entry soon unless
there is some new interest. Just chipping away fixing a few places
isn't going to achieve the consistency this thread was aiming for.

>
> The alternative of just not worrying about it too much also seems to
> have some merit. As you say, you weren't actually confused, just
> irritated by the inconsistency; and spending effort on things that are
> more irritating than serious is not always the right thing to do.
>

Yes, as I am learning.

======
[1] https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/storage-toast.html

Kind Regards,
Peter Smith.
Fujitsu Australia