> ... But I strongly feel that having a feature
> because 'it is something that no one else has. It distinguishes us.' is
> no justification at all.
One reason why we have a database which *does* come very close to the
standards is precisely because it had (and has) things which no one else
had (or has). It demonstrated how to do things which are now part of
SQL99, but which were not implemented *anywhere else* back in the early
'90s.
Inheritance is not as well supported by us, but that is our fault for
focusing on other things recently. I think that some of the recent work
will end up benefiting inheritance features, so these might make some
progress soon too.
Search and destroy missions to eliminate all that is not "standard" will
diminish the product, because we will be constrained to work entirely
within the boundaries of a standard which is poorly thought out around
the edges. If our boundaries are always just a bit wider than that we'll
be OK ;)
All imho of course...
- Thomas