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Comment by walshemj | Hacker News Reader

its not renaming its an alias if you have a complex sql statement having aliases just makes it easy to get you head around the code.

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>its not renaming its an alias

That's what the parent meant with renaming too -- not that there's an actual table RENAME on the database.

An alias is a rename in the sense that it gives a different name for the same referenced table during the query.

Only if they're meaningful.

SQL isn't BASIC, and we aren't limited to x (1,2,4, etc) character variable names. Why not just use the existing meaningful name? They aren't that hard to type, and you might even be able to use autocompletion, depending on environment.

I've spent far too much time re-writing queries to remove obfuscating aliases to accept a blanket statement that they make it easier to get your head around the code.

In my line of work I often end up working with queries where you'll have a handful of JOINs and need to SELECT a dozen or more columns. In those cases writing out staff.foo or students.bar gets old really fast.

I agree that s1 and s2 are bad though, as I said in another comment.

>In my line of work I often end up working with queries where you'll have a handful of JOINs and need to SELECT a dozen or more columns. In those cases writing out staff.foo or students.bar gets old really fast.

It's better to have it "get old" though, than to introduce subtle bugs because of similar, short, aliases.

Longer Names have there own issues and remember not every one can recall long strings. dyslexics and other neurotypical people often have difficulty with this

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