---------- Original Message -----------
From: "sqlsvr" <sqlsvr@...>

> Why can't you edit domains if they are used in a foreign key
> constraint? What kind of nonsense is that?
>
> If you have a natural key that is used in many places and the datatype
> ever or rule ever change (and they do in real business systems), you
> have to manually drop/recreate every constraint that refers to the
> domain in Firebird. How can Firebird call itself a relational DBMS
> when it fails to support domains properly?!?!?!?!?

------- End of Original Message -------

*sigh*

For one thing, very few products that call themselves RDBMS's support domains *at
all*. And you're lucky (IMO) you can change domains that are already in use
without having to drop the fields themselves. Perhaps you could link us to
documentation showing how every other "true" RDBMS (that's a game of semantics,
google for "no true scotsman") out there supports this feature exactly the way
you'd like, as you did(n't) with renaming tables on firebird-java?

Step back, look at your requests, take a deep breath. You're asking the database
to help you fix an incorrectly-designed database -- you chose the wrong table
names, the wrong datatypes, and now you want it to be easy to fix. That's fine.
We understand. We all mess up and want to quickly fix the problem. But most of
the RDBMS features are going to be tuned to runtime data modifications, because
once you're done setting things up, that's what really matters. Short-term pain
(lack of tools to modify metadata easily), for long-term gain (more energy put
into everything you'll need once you release to production.)

So file an enhancement request in JIRA, link to the relevant SQL spec
documentation (if available) so this can be done in a standard way, and relax?

-Philip