Re: Plural or singular table names

"Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_golden.net> wrote in message news:vOg4b.207$Eu2.25006220_at_mantis.golden.net...
> "Ray Cassick (home)" <raycassNOSPAM_at_adelphia.net> wrote in message
> news:4qf4b.11737$Nc.6608551_at_news1.news.adelphia.net...
> > Well my company is going through its processes of writing company
> standards
> > documents and we are at the age old question:
> >
> > "Should table names be in the plural or singular forms?"
[snip]
> From a theory standpoint, it's just a name. X and Y are as good as any other
> names.

That depends on where you draw the theory line in the sand. If you are interesting only in say the mathamatics of relational algebra, then indeed the names are not very important, but even then 'X' would be prefered to say 'XAS$%£^AF"sgrSFPI' by most.

If you prefer to not draw a line between the theory and the practical, then there is no reason why a 'theory of names' cannot be considered. Such a theory would surly be able to tell us that

    { Loves, Loved }

would be better attribute names than

    { X, Y }

or

    { Cabbage, Potato }

and certain much better than

    { Hates, Hated }

for a tuple purporting to represent predicates of the form

    "Juliet loves Romeo"

Regards
Paul Vernon
Business Intelligence, IBM Global Services Received on Mon Sep 01 2003 - 13:33:09 CDT