Re: TOAST versus toast - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

As the original author of the TOAST I vote for TOAST being used as the 
name/acronym of the feature, but toast in all other cases like as verb.


Best Regards, Jan


On 3/16/25 22:49, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 16, 2025 at 7:38 PM Peter Smith <smithpb2250@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If I understand correctly, the summary is:
>> - Tom:  +1 for "TOAST table", but changing all the combined forms is
>> maybe not worth the effort.
>> - DavidJ: Wants to uppercase TOAST only when it refers to 'technique';
>> lowercase otherwise.
>> - RobertT: The verbs should be lowercase (e.g. laser). Each-way bet re
>> David's technique idea.
>> - RobertH: Don't lowercase verbs, but instead try to rewrite these
>> differently where possible.
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with this summary of my position. I'm against
> TOASTed, TOAST-able, and un-TOASTed, and in fact it seems to me that
> nobody else who has commented on this proposal likes those either. It
> seems to me that the idea of upper-casting TOAST where it stands alone
> as a separate word may have some support, although not everyone who
> has commented wants to do it in every situation and nobody seems to
> think it is super-important. But as far as I can see, nobody other
> than you is a fan of doing it when a prefix or suffix has been added.
> I don't mean to suggest that your opinion is unimportant, just that,
> in this case, it doesn't seem to have attracted any support from
> others.
> 
> So I would suggest that you either:
> 
> (1) drop this patch, or perhaps
> (2) cut it down to something that just changes some or all usages of
> TOAST without prefix or suffix and leaves everything else alone, or
> perhaps
> (3) do (2) but also add some rewording to (3a) avoid needing to use
> prefixed or suffixed forms or (3b) to avoid using TOAST altogether.
> 
> I really don't think you're going to get consensus on capitalizing the
> letters TOAST someplace in the middle of a word. I mean, there's
> probably precedent both ways. You get tasered by the police, not
> TASERed by the police; but I think you would write that you were
> SMSing with a colleague rather than smsing with a colleague. But as
> you say, "everybody wrote what they believe is correct," so there is
> probably not going to be support for radically upending our existing
> conventions, and deTOASTing is definitely a minority position. If you
> really want to change something, getting rid of the few instances of
> minority positions like that might be palatable, but something that
> involves replacing a lot of the forms people chose with other forms
> seems less likely to achieve consensus.
> 
> The alternative of just not worrying about it too much also seems to
> have some merit. As you say, you weren't actually confused, just
> irritated by the inconsistency; and spending effort on things that are
> more irritating than serious is not always the right thing to do.
>