maria-developers team mailing list archive

[Peter Laursen <peter_laursen@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Few points:

1) As regards terminology, IMHO it would be logical if 'computed' is used
as the "upperlevel" term. "sublevel'  terms would be 'virtual' and
'persistent' (ie. a 'computed' column may be either 'virtual' or
'persistent').

2) It is not clear to me if this also proposes a change to DDL syntax used
since MariaDB 5.2  or if it is only a discussion for docs. etc.??

3) Oracle has published a MySQL 5.7 'labs' build with a similar feature. It
would be nice if some coordination could happen!  :-)


-- Peter
-- Webyog

On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 2:28 PM, Martijn Tonies (Upscene Productions) <
m.tonies@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hello Ian,
>
> IMO, makes perfect sense.
>
>
> With regards,
>
> Martijn Tonies
> Upscene Productions
> http://www.upscene.com
>
> Download Database Workbench for Oracle, MS SQL Server, Sybase SQL
> Anywhere, MySQL, InterBase, NexusDB and Firebird!
>
>
>
>
> 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
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~maria-developers
> Post to     : maria-developers@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~maria-developers
> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>