Andreas Pflug <pgadmin@pse-consulting.de> writes:
> Justin Clift wrote:
>
>> Tom Lane wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> This question has been touched on before, but I guess it's time to
>>> face it fair and square: is it reasonable for an SQL
>>> implementation to add implementation-specific columns to an
>>> information_schema view? One could certainly argue that the
>>> entire point of information_schema is to be *standard*, not more,
>>> not less. OTOH I do not know if adding an extra column is likely
>>> to break anyone's application. Comments?
>>
>>
>> Well, I suppose it reduces application portability if anyone starts
>> relying on it.
>
>
> We're advertising to do pure ANSI, so we'd mislead people if we
> supplied non-standard columns.
Yes, but if folks wanted to stick to the standard PostgreSQL would
still work. The only difference is that people who aren't concerned
about being more tied to PostgreSQL would get some extra features.
There is a huge difference between adhering to a standard and limiting
yourself to a standard. The real question is whether PostgreSQL's
goal is to support SQL standards, or whether PostgreSQL's goal is to
give PostgreSQL users a useful set of tools.
Jason Earl