MySQL naming conventions, should field name include the table name?

Question

A friend told me that I should include the table name in the field name of the same table, and I\'m wondering why? And should it be like this? Example:

(Table)         


        

Answer 1

Actually, there is a reason for that kind of naming, especially when it comes to fields, you're likely to join on. In MySQL at least, you can use the USING keyword instead of ON, then users u JOIN posts p ON p.user_id = u.id becomes users u JOIN posts p USING(user_id) which is cleaner IMO.

Regarding other types of fields, you may benefit when selecting *, because you wouldn't have to specify the list of the fields you need and stay sure of which field comes from which table. But generally the usage SELECT * is discouraged on performance and mainenance grounds, so I consider prefixing such fields with table name a bad practice, although it may differ from application to application.