I think the hyperbole is understated, if anything. I think perhaps we are not talking about the same thing. Assertions are self-checking by the programmer, not a nanny-state in any way and very necessary, Static Analysis, Fuzzers and its ilk are all informative - tools to help you see the light - they are definitely not Nannies in any way. You do see the difference between something "informing" me of an assumed stupid thing I did... and a compiler/query-planner prohibiting/breaking/erroring out based on the same assumption of the stupid thing I did - right? One should be killed with fire, the other should be applauded - I myself have spent quite some effort making the schema-analyszer in SQLiteSpeed that informs people of just these kinds of naming (and other) possible problems, when they ASK it to do so. What it should never do, is prohibit it or error on it. I hope that makes my belief more clear.