E pluribus unum, was: identity columns

I go for plural table names. It tends to make me distinguish a table name from a column name
most of the time, without thought or reference. I picked up the habit before I learned SQL.

My first relational interface was a language called "RDO" (The acronym has since been reused).

In that language, there was a construct that looked like this:

for EMPLOYEE in EMPLOYEES

   with ... EMPLOYEE.EMPLOYEE_NAME ...

   begin ... end.

"EMPLOYEE" was a local context variable, and not stored in the DB. The general practice was to use plural relation names, but singular context variables, or even abbreviations for context variables. The loop structure of the language made such a construct natural, since, inside the loop, one was generally thinking about one row at a time. (Don't yell at me, Joe Celko... I'm not advocating that kind of thinking.)

SQL is different than RDO, and generally preferable, but my habit of naming tables in the plural never went away.

--
Regards,
    David Cressey
    www.dcressey.com