Dimitry,

>>Recently I have used the feature in MS SQL for ordinary DBA work, and
>>found it very useful. I created a lot of tables and dropped none. :-)
>>Nothing that couldn't be done by good admin/client tools, but having
>>the feature in SQL is just handy.

D> It is handy but it is against relation theory. Normalization! Why
D> you can want to have two tables in a database with the same structure
D> and the same data?..

if this was a valid argument, which it isn't, we wouldn't have views
and the insert..select syntax. Who tells you I want the same structure
and data? select statements support filters, joins and expressions.
But even if I just wanted to do "select * from X into NEW_X", perhaps
I want to make a copy of some data to further process it (for example
export it), or keep it apart while I perform tests. As I said, nothing
that a good console couldn't do (perform a select, build a create
table statement based on the XSQLDA and a user-provided name, then build
and execute an insert..select statement, all with appropriate use of
commit). Doing it in a single statement is considered handy by many
coming from other databases. I can well do without it (and perhaps
enhance FlameRobin to do it for me if the need becomes pressing), yet
if it doesn't disrupt Fb's architecture why couldn't it do it for me?

My point was just that the feature is not necessarily bound to an
application architecture that continuously creates and drops tables. I
think this is the kind of DBA-helping feature (together with the often
requested export as CSV/XML/whatever and some others) that people
(probably rightfully) deem not appropriate to integrate in the core
engine, but perhaps in a console administration tool like isql. The
problem is that Fb doesn't ship any good one, and users don't really
care at which level a feature is implemented as long as it's there.

I propose that the current deafult approach used here with feature
requests, "Fb doesn't do it, so you don't need it" gradually shifts
towards "you need it, so Fb will do it" wherever possible. :-)

Ciao
--
Nando Dessena
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