Oracle FAQ Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid
HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US
 

Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.misc -> Re: Portable way to DROP a COLUMN?..

Re: Portable way to DROP a COLUMN?..

From: Galen Boyer <galen_boyer_at_yahoo.com>
Date: 22 Sep 2006 07:04:01 -0500
Message-ID: <uirjgq6g9.fsf@rcn.com>


On Thu, 21 Sep 2006, usenet+meow_at_aldan.algebra.com wrote:
> "Jim Kennedy" <jim dot scuba dot kennedy at gee male dot com> wrote:
>

>> Dropping a column isn't trivial and should only be done when
>> absolutely necessary.

>
> Whether the task is trivial is besides the point.
>
> What certainly is (or ought to be) trivial is the syntax for the
> operation.
>
>> Think about what occurs when you drop a column. [...]

>
> DB-vendors collect thousands of dollars just so that I don't have to
> "think about what occurs" in the DB back-end, and can concentrate on
> my application. This was is the promise of the standalone database
> servers...

When was it promised that all vendors would have the same syntax for all operations?

> Dropping a column is a legitimate operation (required, for example,
> when the data-model changes during application's upgrade), and there
> is no excuse for there not being a standardized SQL way of doing
> it.

Oracle does have a way. Sybase does have a way. SQLServer has a way. DB2 has a way. Why must it be a standard way across vendors? In my opinion, it is such a dangerous operation, I would rather all vendors change how they do it each release, hell, each patch release and none of these are the same and that they don't document it either. This way, people that are writing applications can never code this into their apps. They, instead have to go to a database professional and ask her to do it.

> Having such standardized vendor-agnostic way for all (most?)
> operations is another big promise...
>
> Breaking these promises (however commonplace) is simply indefensible
> -- stop trying...

An app trying to do this is simply indefensible.

-- 
Galen Boyer
Received on Fri Sep 22 2006 - 07:04:01 CDT

Original text of this message

HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US