Tom Lane wrote:
> > Any chance on some documentation clarity? Or honestly, some further
> > justification for why it needs to stay like this?
>
> The killer argument, as I recall, was that we should take pains not
> to irretrievably drop data if there was any doubt as to whether it
> was still wanted. But even if you didn't believe that, there's now
> a dozen years worth of backwards compatibility to worry about --- it's
> been like this since 2002 or so.
Wow, it's been a long time ...
commit c328b6dd8bd85d91a0fd465c30b0bb352ea51e2b
Author: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Date: Sun Sep 22 19:42:52 2002 +0000
Replace pg_attribute.attisinherited with attislocal and attinhcount
columns, to allow more correct behavior in multiple-inheritance cases.
Patch by Alvaro Herrera, review by Tom Lane.
--
Álvaro Herrera http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services