Hi Aleksey,
>
>>
>>Main Question: Is this an "implementation detail" which will remain or is there a possibility of a change to the behaviour Celko describes ?
>
>I believe we don't have plans to change this behavior.

>>The second is even less related to SQL but more to my personal style of coding and xBase/vfp behaviour: in xBase the table field to be changed can be coded as a name expression
>
>We don't have plans to extend this behavior to SQL.
>
Thanks for your information

thomas