[serpix]

Both examples are (to my delight) using aliased table names for all columns which is already a major step up in readability.

[Izkata]

I tend to find table aliases a step down in readability, and only use them as necessary, because now your eyes have to jump up and down to see where the columns come from.

[ausp]

The aliases don't force you to follow each one through; eyes can do no jumping if you like in either case.

But if you can't infer from the column name which table they will come from, I find having the option to check far more preferable to that of having no way of knowing.

[rbanffy]

I think the aliases in the example are very intuitive - it's easy to correctly guess where they come from.

[Suppafly]

>I tend to find table aliases a step down in readability

I suppose it depends on your database, one of the ones I work with all the time has crazy long table and view names and aliases make resulting SQL more readable.