On Aug 11, 2006, at 6:00 PM, James Harvard wrote:
FWIW a couple of weeks ago I read of a good reason not to use
uppercase letters in table column names. I can't remember what it was
now, but it seemed like sense at the time! My personal preference is
to always use lowercase and separate any words that need it with an
underscore. Apart from that I agree with Douglas Sims that what is
most readable is best.
select user_email, user_address, user_postcode from users where
user_id = %d;
# Hmm
Not so readable, I agree, but great when you want to find all
references to a particular database column in 1000s of lines of code!
I have found this more important than readability (although there is no
excuse for sloppy formating).
select email, address, postcode from users where user_id = %d;
# Less typing and more readable.
In fact I would go a step further. Call the table tab_users (or
something similar), so that it is easy to find all references to this
particular object in your program.
Also make sure structure and class members have unique names (prefix
the names with a short form of the structure name). For example, think
of how many fields are called 'flags' in a C program. It is extremely
useful to be able to quickly find all references to a particular flags
field.
This also makes a program for outsiders easier to understand because it
is possible to answer questions like "How is this field/column used?",
but just doing a global search.
- Paul
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