Re: polite request about syntax

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pgsql-hackers-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org
> [mailto:pgsql-hackers-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org] On Behalf Of
> Ricardo Malafaia
> Sent: 15 September 2006 16:35
> To: Andrew Dunstan
> Cc: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] polite request about syntax
>
> my complaint is that, like i said, "timestamp with time zone" is no
> good substitute for a simple "datetime". Here, someone suggested a
> CREATE DOMAIN to create an alias for it. Why isn't it provided there
> out-of-the-box by default? So you have the SQL standard timestamp and
> the industry standard datetime.

Because adding everybody's idea of industry-standard typenames, function
name, operators etc will lead to bloated system catalogs and insanity
for people trying to understand what differences between objects there
may or may not be.

We follow the SQL standards. If you need to provide compatibility types
and functions to migrate from another product, then unlike many others
we provide the capability for you to add them yourself.

> and, while $$ is a whole lot better than '', why do we really need
> these? Why not a normal, simple, begin end block or {}? People in
> the industry don't like hacks and the open-source world is full of it,
> though it's getting better.

Because the parser may have no knowledge of the syntax of the language
being used which may legitimately use begin-end or { } for some other
purpose (possibly not in matched pairs). Dollar quoting gives you the
flexibility to avoid any potential clash. If we only had one procedural
language then I'm sure we could do away with dollar quoting, but there
are a dozen or more out there and they're all different.

Regards, Dave.