I do not debate philosophy: don't forget that English is not my native language, and that BOL I refer to is in French. So sometimes (often) I may hurt someone, and I apologize for that.
Especially here, I've found 2 differents meaning of "covering index". One refers to index which includes all columns, and another to index where all columns are either in key columns, either in include columns. Also found a third usage of "covering index", where it means index with include columns, no matter of the # of them. Even in French, it is confused for me . Trying to dicuss it in English is very difficult.
Thanks again for your patience (and for StrataFrame)
There is no apology necessary and I was never frustrated, offended, or anything of the sort, though my post was a little bleak. When I was posting I was trying to get out the door, so I did not elaborate on any of my explanations.
Yes, you are 100% correct that terminology and nomeclature can mess things up when having these types of discussions, even when English IS your native language!
I think that we are on the same page here. Long story short, we will be introducing the INCUDED columns in a near release as we are also adding additional data type support for some other users as well (yes, that is you Keith if you are reading this post). We are going to be careful on this build prior to releasing to make sure that there are many unit tests in place to make sure nothing is broken along the way. But this is something that is very beneficial and even something I have recently used as well. So there is definitely a need.
Thanks for your continued support and I apologize if my post seemed harsh, as that was not my intention at all!