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Member vs User

T

TechBoyJK

Lifer
When building database tables and designing apps that will have a login system, do you prefer to call these entities 'users' or 'members'.

For instance, every person who has an account on facebook is a 'member' of facebook. Would you assign each person a 'member id'? Or would you prefer to call it 'user id'.

While user/member are really two different concepts, I'm trying to decide on a naming convention for 'members' of a website aka those who have an account and have registered.

member_id? memberID?
user_id? userID?
 
Always use "user" though pics? is "member" and I can't stand it every time I go to that database and am reminded.

A user is a user of the system. You can track anonymous vs registered users in the same or discrete tables depending on your design.
 
User is part of a (near) ubiquitous language that has been (is being) used to describe software for ages. The architect where I work has us switching to member as we rewrite our system, but I just don't like it.

And... don't use underscores. Your future self will thank you. SQL may not be case-sensitive, but it saves the casing you put on any object. So when you look at your table in any of the SQL tools, you will, in fact, see UserID if that's how you typed it when you created it.
 
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