maria-developers team mailing list archive

[Ian Gilfillan <ian@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

There was a suggestion on the docs mailing list that we rename Virtual 
Columns to Computed Columns. I think it makes sense, but before we 
implement I want to make sure everyone is happy with the change, so am 
repeating it here as not everyone follows docs.
Currently, we use the term Virtual Columns (see 
https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/documentation/sql-structure-and-commands/sql-commands/data-definition/create/virtual-columns/).
Oracle uses this term, while MS SQL and Firebird use the term Computed 
Columns to describe similar functionality.
MariaDB's virtual column implementation has both persistent and virtual 
attributes. Talking of "virtual virtual" and "persistent virtual" can be 
confusing. Oracle's implementation, to my knowledge, only has virtual 
virtual, while MS SQL's Computed Columns offers both persistent 
("persisted" in their case) and virtual.
I think "Computed" is a slightly more descriptive term, and avoids the 
ambiguity of "persistent virtual" and "virtual virtual". The MariaDB 
error messages already use the term computed, for example "Constant 
expression in computed column function is not allowed".
Unless anyone has a good reason to prefer the term virtual, we're going 
to rather use the term "computed column" in the docs. The article will 
still mention virtual column as an alternative etc, but computed will be 
the preferred term.
ian