Tom,
> IMHO, practically the only solid argument for changing from the way
> we do things now is "to meet the letter of the spec". The various sorts
> of gamesmanship you list would most definitely not meet the letter of
> the spec; between that and the inevitability of breaking some apps,
> I'm inclined to reject them all on sight.
Actually, there are a number of *very* popular database tools, particularly
in the Java world (such as Netbeans and BIRT) which do mix quoted and
unquoted identifiers. In general, users of those tools reject PostgreSQL
as "broken" for our nonstandard behavoir rather than trying to work around
it.
So it's not just a standards issue; this problem really *is* hurting us in
adoption.
--
--Josh
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL @ Sun
San Francisco