>Actually, I think this is a waste of time in xBase too. It makes sense with variables because xBase is weakly typed (meaning you can put any value into any variable), so a naming convention tells the developer what data type is expected in a variable. However, fields in tables are strongly typed, so there's no need to use a naming convention to tell you the expected data type; just look at the table structure.

I agree completely - in fact, we have a strict policy here that field names must be as English-like as possible, since users do various viewing and exporting of DBs into Crystal, Access, Excel, etc. The last thing you want is users confused by odd naming conventions.

The other rule we have is to always use long field names, so that a field's contents can be adequately described for not only users, but any legacy inheritors.