Re: RFD: schemas and different kinds of Postgres objects

On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Gavin Sherry wrote:

> This makes a lot of sense and suggests the possibility of 'schema enabled'
> databases. That is, a switch 'bool withschemas' (which defaults to
> false) could be added to pg_database. If true, the parser and ownership
> model reflects that of SQL'99 and/or the Postgres schema model. If false,
> the existing 'schema' model is assumed.
>
> This should allow existing users to migrate their data and applications to
> 7.3 without having to modify either.
>
> Its not an ideal solution but backward compatibility is generally results
> in compromise ;).

I guess my frustration with this idea is that we don't really need it. We
can achieve the same global namespace for an old app without it. All we
need is a tool which turns old dumps into new ones (which we probably need
anyway) that merges all of the schemas together w/ PATH statements. Or
maybe (new idea) a tool which looks at the schemas in a DB and updates
their PATHs so they act unified.

We can achieve the old behavior w/o having to build it into the backend.
So why add code to the backend when we don't have to? Among other things,
it would complicate the system schema as we'd have to keep track of
ownership values we wouldn't otherwise need to.

Take care,

Bill