Chuck McDevitt wrote:
PostgreSQL already has a huge amount of
"non-standard" syntax and semantics (perhaps "extensions" is a better
word?).
Everything from non-standard cast operator, non-standard substr,
non-standard trim, non standard group by semantics (allowing simple ints
to mean column number)... Given a day, we could probably write down
several pages of "non-standard" features of PGSQL.
Quite so, and I've perpetrated a few myself. But for the most part they
are either there for legacy reasons or add significant extra functionality.
I rather like Alvaro's compromise suggestion re aliases in fact. At
least there seems to be a better case for that than for "group by 'blurfl'".
But the argument that convinces me is not that it follows some de facto
standard, but that it would add to clarity. Requiring an alias where it
isn't used seems to me a piece of less than excellent design.
cheers
andrew
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