>George,
>
>>The most important thing is readability. Anything that helps this is useful. Since the bulk of the cost associated with any system is in maintenance and modification, the easier it is to read, the easier it is to maintain and modify. I have heard (not here, but from other programmers), "Well, I can read it." To me this is the height of arrogance.
>
>Well, I know, But the main question i'm asking is: Does naming conventions have a positive effect on readability ?? Of course the large majority here is used to use them, and for that matter it will be hard to get rid of. But I really doubt if you program your code in the right way, (giving good names, comment your code, use indentation, use the OOP style programming) naming convention is of any added value.
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>>We don't indulge in these conventions for our own benefit. They are used for the benefit of anyone else who may inherit our work at a later date.
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>Well this statement seems to come out of someone with a long experience regarding naming convention. But since much has changed over the past few years, I felt that looking at it from another angle might be usefull. Like i said earlier, general accepted principles of today should be questioned tommorow.
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>I must admit that untill today I still use the type prefix, but i'm willing to drop it, if Readability is improved or if it seems more a overhead than a help.
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>Walter,

I haven't read the entire thread, so I don't know if this idea has come up or not. I feel that, ultimately, a properly designed naming convention will improve the performance and capabilities of automated code analysis tools and/or code generators.

I can't cite any specific examples to support this thesis. I'm basing it mainly on custom analysis tools I've written for myself, and from playing around with some commercial products over the years. A NY company called WallSoft used to make some interesting XBase products. I used their UI Programmer code generator for a while. I found the whole concept of a code generator very mind-expanding; compared to regular programming, it was like going from algebra to calculus.

Just my $ 0.02.