SQL Style Guide

Weird, I really dislike a lot of the suggestions. In particular, an example: SELECT first_name AS fn FROM staff AS s1 JOIN students AS s2 ON s2.mentor_id = s1.staff_num; We already agreed that staff is a good name for a table, so why are we renaming it to s1? There are all sorts of subtle bugs that arise when s2.mentor_id = s1.staff_num is wrong, and the variable names provide no help here that we're doing things right. How about: SELECT…

Familiarity makes consistency the only real guide in any formatting guide. So, apart from formatting rules, there are still a few bits to argue about. Try to use only standard SQL functions instead of vendor specific functions for reasons of portability. I don't think this is too important as the many places I've worked at had been using the same vendor for many years. Depends on your future plans, I guess. Include comments in SQL code where necessary. Use the…

> Spaces should be used to line up the code so that the root keywords all end on the same character boundary. SELECT file_hash FROM file_system WHERE file_name = '.vimrc'; This style is annoying and I wish it gained less traction. It looks neat but it puts so much burden on the query writer, especially when you modify the query and all of the sudden you need to indent multiple lines just to make them all align. You know what's…

"Use a collective name or, less ideally, a plural form. For example (in order of preference) staff and employees." I hope Simon Holywell has never had to model a zoo in SQL. "Where are the rattlesnakes Simon - are they in the rhumba, crash or knot table?" [1] [1] http://blog.writeathome.com/index.php/2013/03/improved-anima...