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[nycphp-talk] Database, table, and column naming schemes

David Krings ramons at gmx.net
Sun Sep 13 07:51:31 EDT 2009


Tim Lieberman wrote:
> In my experience, the most important thing is consistency.  Almost 
> everything else is a matter of taste.

Exactly!

> However, it can create a lot of typing, which can be annoying.

While that is a good warning, it shouldn't be a reason to shy away from 
clearly named tables and columns. I think it is better to type a bit more than 
keep guessing that column drvtsn is for driver_trip_sheet_number. Depending on 
which tool is used to craft the queries you may have intellisense and the 
typing is less of an issue after a while.

Keep in mind that there is a chance that someone other than yourself has to 
deal with the tables and code later. And even you will be happier when you 
don't have to permanently guess half a year from now. I think it is better to 
deal with the annoyance of typing than with the annoyance of ambiguitiy. A 
mistyped column name will make your query fail, ambiguity will possibly not 
while being still wrong.

Other than that, Tim covered it all.

David



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