Terse table names in databases

[froggyswamp]

Folks, are you using short names for tables like "EMP" instead of "Employee"?
If so - why, to save typing? And is it (still) considered a good practice?

[Tony Flury]

I would recommend using long names in your design and DB development, and if you are using a decent RDMS you could create aliases to shorten your table names.

However - just like code which uses short variable names, code which uses shortened table name is likely to be less obvious, and less easy to read.

[apoth]

I tend to write them out in full, to an extent.

At work some muppet's written table names like PACKAGE_CLASS where just CLASS would suffice as unique. Then they have columns like TABLENAME_UID. Drives me mad!

[ratcheer]

I have been a DBA for most of the past 30 years. It is generally recommended to make table names as descriptive as possible, i.e., not terse. This doesn't mean extra long just to be long, but whatever is required to give clear meaning.

Tim