Roland Alexander STL (11/15/2012)
No, I don't believe I'm confused. Have a look at the list at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143729.aspx where you'll find this entry:Use of DEFAULT keyword as default value.
Do not use the word DEFAULT as a default value.
under "Not Supported In A Future Version of SQL Server".
Now, it may be that I misread this, but I'm hard-pressed to see how. Nonetheless I would be quite happy to be shown wrong.
It toook me a lot of digging to get to the bottom of this. But finally, I stumbled upon a Connect item filed against this specific text in Books Online, back in 2007. Link: http://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/293052/incorrect-depreaction-use-of-default-keyword-as-default-value.
Apparently, Microsoft wants to deprecate using the literal text 'DEFAULT' as a default value. Exactly why they want to do that is not clear, nor why, five years later, the wording has still not been clarified - but at least we can all heave a sigh of relief, knowing that Microsoft is not going to deprecate the ANSI-standard usage of syntax values. They are "only" going to outlaw one specific, randomly chosen value.
(By the way, when thinking about this issue I can't help wondering what will happen in localized versions of SQL Server - will the Japanese version accept the string 'DEFAULT' but produce an error on the Japanese translation of that word? This looks like a very random idea to me!)