Upper Case in keywords.

> The funny thing about this thread - however - is how somebody brought
> up the issue of books - alluding to how we should follow something because
> it's in a book. One common coding convention in SQL books is to
> use upper case for all sql keywords. The thing I found in project
> maintenance
> is that I don't care so much about the sql as I do about everything else
> in the proc, view, query or whatever it is I'm looking at.

Funny you should mention it. I've seen the same thing myself. But I got exposed to the opposite convention
early on by an "Extract" statement that composes DDL from the metadata. This particular command put the sql keywords in lower case, and the data names in upper case. I don't know whether it's just force of habit, but the "keywords in lower case" convention has always made more sense to me.

And I think it's as you say. By having the data names in upper case, my attention is drawn to those
things I really need to see.

I'll note in passing that all the keywords in "C" are in lower case. So by adopting a "keywords in lower case" convention, you do a little less mental shifting when you switch back and forth.. Is this also true of Java?

--
Regards,
    David Cressey
    www.dcressey.com