On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Yuri Baburov <burc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Russell, > > is it possible to introduce some new field type > ShortTextField for that purpose, that will be by default > `varchar(4000)` on Oracle and DB2 who supports long varchars, and > `text` on other backends like it was before, excepting 'smalltext' > instead of 'longtext' for mysql?
I can see that this approach doesn't have any backward compatibility issues. However, from a documentation point of view, explaining the difference between a ShortTextField and a TextField requires a leaky abstraction (i.e., you have to know about implementation details in order for the explanation to make sense). With a different coat of paint, it might be more palatable. A name like ShortTextField presupposes the storage implementation, but tells you nothing about the appropriate usage. However, a different name - something like GenericKeyField tells you nothing about the storage, but does tell you when it might be appropriate to use it. Of course GenericKeyField has the problem of being easy to confuse with GenericForeignKey. For that reason, I'm not sold on GenericKeyField as a name - any suggestions in this general vein are welcome. > I think this is a point where "TextField is accessed by value" > abstraction breaks, and better separation between long string and > referenced object should be introduced. Agreed. > I assume we have not much Oracle & DB2 users yet, and nothing will > change for them unless they already suffer from this problem and they > will not anymore. Migration script is single "alter table" command, > and that needs to be documented. I'm always a little nervous about upgrading instructions, and doubly so about those that include database migrations. History has shown us that it doesn't matter how well we write upgrading notes - backwards incompatible changes cause problems. Unless there is a particularly compelling reason to change the existing Oracle implementation, I'd rather not force that change. Yours, Russ Magee %-) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
