title: Name database design notation you prefer and why?
body: <p>Which notation<strike>, methodology </strike> and tools for database designing, modeling, diagraming you prefer and why?
  Which notation, standards<strike>, methodology</strike> are the most broadly used and covered by different vendors?</p>
  <p>Which are standard and which are not? i.e. which are to stick with and which to avoid?</p>
  <p>And why do you prefer IDEF1X? Is not it more comfortable to stick with tools, notations built-in into used client tools of RDBMS?</p>
  <h2>Update</h2>
  <p>I just read <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/976185/what-are-some-of-your-most-useful-database-standards">What are some of your most useful database standards?</a> I am quite surprised - dozen of answers there and absolutely no names or references, only lengthy descriptions. Are all database developers amateurs using custom-made terminology and conventions?</p>
  <p>What I asked for was names (possibly references) not descriptions.<br />
  Notations, for example, <a href="http://www.agiledata.org/essays/dataModeling101.html#Notations" rel="nofollow noreferrer">UML, IDEF1X. Barker, Information Engineering</a>.</p>
  <p>Well, I am mostly SQL Server dev and, as @dportas mentioned, I see some notation in diagrams in SSMS and msdn docs, books, articles.</p>