Hi Walter

>Hi mike,
>
>>I wish you'd tell us what disadvantages you see. Readability is not a significant argument.
>
>Well, readability IMO IS a significant argument. The other disadvantage I see is that you and others (Craig, doesnt use a m. on the left side of the equal sign) seem to have certain rules for when to use a m. for a variable and when not to. In my eyes that seems rather inconsistant. I bett it it is for every user who first looks at without knowing the background.

Everything has rules. We cannot write FOR BROWSE. You said we have to know how things work. I agree. I think the impact of putting the m. on the left side of an assignment is minor. The correct usage of it IMO is more important than the consistency, but I could live with making it consistent.

>
>I don't see any significant value in the performance advantages/disadvantages that apparantly exists and seem to differ from version to version. Though percentagewise they seem to be significant (i've measured about a 100% difference with wide tables) in absolute sense it does just not justify the use (maybe in very specific cases). I'm just not convinced any user could tell the difference.
>
>As I already told, I see the advantage of explicitly telling VFP the variable is a variable and not a field. As I mentioned, I avoid this problem by having different naming conventions for fieldname and variables.

You are only avoiding the problem while you are in your own environment and you are giving up a little speed by holding to your personal preference.

This IMO is like a smoker who won't quit despite evidence that it is bad.

I for one am very dissappointed that this cannot be resolved reasonably.