When designing a database schema, one common discussion point is:

🧐 Should we name the primary key column in the users table as id or user_id?

Option 1️⃣: id
• Simple and clean.
• Easy to reference inside the table (users.id).
• Many frameworks (like Laravel, Django, Rails) assume this convention by default.

Option 2️⃣: user_id
• Self-descriptive and avoids ambiguity when joining multiple tables.
• Makes queries more readable without always aliasing (orders.user_id vs orders.id).
• Helpful in larger schemas with multiple joins.

✅ Best Practice (my view):
• Use id as the primary key inside the users table.
• Use user_id as the foreign key in related tables.

That way, the schema stays clean, while relationships remain explicit.

🔵 Example:

This balance keeps both readability and consistency.