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Re: Naming Convention for Columns

From: Joel Garry <joelga_at_pebble.ml.org>
Date: 1998/03/17
Message-ID: <6en93o$f2l$1@pebble.ml.org>#1/1

In article <1998031722435700.RAA17587_at_ladder03.news.aol.com>, MarkP28665 <markp28665_at_aol.com> wrote:
>Just continuing the thread.
>
>Why not give the columns meaningful names, and where two or more tables hold
>the same data values use the same column name. There is no need to include the
>table name as part of the column name. I have yet to meet and end-customer who
>can not grasp the consept of assigning a label to a table name and joining
>liked named columns as in 'e.deptno = d.deptno'.

I have. Of course, I used to have to support ex-Cobol programmers with no relational training.

On the other hand, using a tool like Crystal Reports makes far too many links between commonly named columns like 'address' and 'city', so you have to sit there and unlink all these columns to leave the one or two that are supposed to be there. Then it kvetches because in one table a column allowed to be null. Then it can't figure out what to do when the server dictionary changes.

These problems were old 20 years ago. Weren't they?

>
>The original driving force behind Dr. Codd creating relational database theory
>was that rows and columns are easy for end-users to understand.
>
>Mark Powell -- Oracle 7 Certified DBA
>- The only advice that counts is the advice that you follow so follow your own
>advice -
>

-- 
These opinions are my own and not necessarily those of Information Quest
jgarry@eiq.com                           http://www.informationquest.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/joel_garry
"See your DBA?"  I AM the @#%*& DBA!
Received on Tue Mar 17 1998 - 00:00:00 CST

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