Re: TOAST versus toast - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

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.

--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com