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Naming Standards

Aaron Bertrand talks about naming standards:

I’ve long been a proponent of not caring about which naming standards you use, but I do find it very important that your standards follow these three basic rules:

  1. The conventions make sense. You should be able to argue why the chosen convention is better than an alternative, and it can’t just be because you like it better. This doesn’t mean you have to win that argument, just that you should be arguing for something tangible.

  2. The entire team is on board. You should all agree on a standard before implementation, and any changes you make over time should be by committee.

  3. You don’t make exceptions. Even if you’re a one-person team, if you’re going to bother having a standard, it needs to be used consistently. It’s amazing how quickly exceptions can become the new rules.

If you want to talk subjectivity, I disagree with the idea that tables should be plural, as I tend to think terms of an entity (e.g., Person) which contains attributes, rather than the collection of entities which contain a specific combination of attributes.  Regardless, “set a standard and stick to it” is important advice.