>Since all of my variables have scoping letters and my field names
>never have them, I can never have a variable name which is the
>same as a field name. Thus no need for ugly "m." prefixes.

We take a somewhat different approach in vfp...I agree, no antiquated "m." prefixes, but all locals have typing prefixes, and no field names ever do. As one or two others have noted, users often have access to tables/fields (through CR, for example), so we want very English-like naming conventions - no funny esoteric prefixes allowed...and generally only long and highly descriptive field names...