Why abbreviate schema names?

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Nathan Griffiths — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:28:21 GMT

I've never seen anywhere using three-letter schema names but your comments are right, I can't think of any justification for naming schemas like that either. We do use schemas and they are a great feature, but I have seen some instances where developers have started to treat the schema name as part of the object name, e.g. "Policy.Details" instead of "Policy.PolicyDetails" - this often leads to multiple tables with the same name on different schemas, e.g. "Contract.Details" and "Policy.Details" - then someone refers to the "Details" table.... I think this can lead to unnecessary confusion.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

AaronBertrand — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:44:37 GMT

I agree with Nathan, I don't see anything as obtuse as the example you cite, but as a counter-point I do agree that typing longer schemas can be annoying in many-table queries (one of the reasons I like dbo). I am using schemas but I generally turn off IntelliSense as it seems to get in my way more often than it helps. Every couple of months I give it another spin (both the built-in and the Red-Gate version) but I always tend to turn it off quickly.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Tom Groszko — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:18:23 GMT

Likely SQL developers do it for the same reason they obfuscate table name aliases. With intellesence typing is not an issue.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

James @ BI Monkey — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:38:04 GMT

All abbreviation in Column / Table / Filed names drives me nuts. There's no need for it, especially now intellisense is here to save your fingers. Why call a table ClmRecGrsAmt when you can call it ClaimRecievedGrossAmount, something that may actually make sense?

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

jamiet — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 08:55:19 GMT

Ah aliases....I must admit I do use aliases which are, inherently, abbreviations. I might have to admit to double standards here :)

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Bill — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:45:10 GMT

Our data modeling team are all former Mainframe COBOL folks and the naming standard for tables was 18 characters when I started. After petitioning the Standards Committee, yes we have one, we were able to have the length of table names increased to 32 characters---ostensibly to make things more readable. Now instead of SR_M_ADV_IVC_HST_S we get things like SHRCLASMSLSLD_PRTFFDSHRCLAS_VM

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

David Wynne — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:57:17 GMT

Hello from the C# world - abbreviations and prefixes/Hungarian notation where long ago deemed a code smell. Intellisence does much to negate the need, but the bottom line is about readability, maintainability and lots of other stuff that ends in ability.

If you're basing architectural decisions on the "how quickly I can type a name" - you need to step back and ask yourself some questions.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Ben E — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:14:27 GMT

David's hit the nail on the head there: naming conventions should be driven by clarity rather then brevity.

Code should aim to be self-documenting as much as possible, which isn't going to happen if object names are unnecessarily abbreviated.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Eric Wisdahl — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:59:01 GMT

Abbreviations in schema, table and column names drive me crazy. Then again, so do aliases where you aren't referencing the same table multiple times. Spell it out so that there is no ambiguity for the next person that comes along. I don't need to search through the code to find out which table T39 belongs to... And I don't need to wonder what the Act schema should be used for (Actuarial? Accounting?).

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

WIDBA — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:36:44 GMT

We have both - some abbreviations work cause they are so well known, when their is any ambiguity, we move towards a short word that makes sense. I don't see the need for automatedpaymentsystem.outstandingcollections when AP will do.

but as you mentioned, right/wrong does not apply. too short and its obscure, too long and its cumbersome.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Home — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:56:26 GMT

Two reasons

1. Some database products has limit of chars in name

2. Once your product support multiple databases, you must use the most restricted one

Cheers

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Dave F — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 14:51:04 GMT

Much ado about nothing. Move on.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Dave F — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:15:14 GMT

Much ado about nothing.

re: Why abbreviate schema names?

Chris Anderson — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:22:16 GMT

Defintely a balance. Generally I err on the side of spelling out reasonably descriptive names for table and column names, but do abbreviate schemas names. I think it's one of those things thats so pervasive in a particular app domain, that to constantly see it spelled out is counter-productive. Think the people who use 'tbl*' as a naming convention for tables. After about the third query you write, you're thinking "Yes, I know it's a table...". Given an hour or so orientation to a database, I would expect most db professionals to quickly acclimate a few abbreviated objects (e.g. that the 'rec' schema refers to 'reconciliation', or 'recreation', or 'recordsales', etc. whatever it means to that database)