<p><font size="2">I'm writing this as a convert from MS-Access to PostgreSQL so whatever happens things are getting
better:-)</font><p><font size="2">When using M$ Access I took for granted that any time I altered my database, I would
beable to go back later and revert or alter that table, query, constraint etc so that nothing was set in
stone!</font><p><fontsize="2">For Example:</font><br /><font size="2">If I set a field to varchar(20) and then found
outit needed to be larger I could go back and easily change that to varchar(30) but this, if you read the documentation
isalmost impossible, in PostgreSQL as there is no 'Alter table <tablename> alter column .. ' command for
attributesizes BTW (I have just found out that this is possible by changing atttypmod in pg_attribute :-) Is this
safe?).</font><p><fontsize="2">Also Foreign keys cannot be deleted easily, Not Null Constraints (or is that constraints
ingeneral) cannot be changed, columns cannot be dropped etc.</font><p><font size="2">I know there are ways round these
problems:If you go into pg_attribute you can change attnotnull to add or remove Not Null constraints and if all else
failsyou can drop and recreate the table. This then opens another can of worms when it comes to rules and triggers.
Yourecreate the table as it says in the docs, but what it does not say is none of your triggers or rules (or views I
suppose)will work anymore. They need to be recreated because they refer to the OID of the table instead of the table
name.</font><p><fontsize="2">I'm sure there are other examples of this mindset which makes me frustrated at PostgreSQL,
andI also know that Postgres is a much more capable database than Access will ever be e.g. transactions, MVCC,
triggers,rules, views, loads of other things, so I am changing the way I work so that I can get the best out of
Postgres. I was just trying to point out that to make Postgres easier for the simpletons on this planet i.e. myself,
couldyou make it one of your priorities to work on some of these probs.</font><p><font size="2">Hopefully for 7.2 -
7.3</font><p><fontsize="2">Anyway</font><p><font size="2">Thanks for all the work so far.</font><p><font
size="2">Ben</font>
