>>However, if "it ain't readable, it ain't maintainable". The biggest problem that I see with such conventions is that they can lead some "pointy headed manager" into enforcing them simply because they can. Readability should be the deciding factor.
>
>And the best intentions...
>
>I've had two cases back in 10-character field name times... "VrAna" was supposed to be shorthand for "VRsta ANAlitike" (type of analytics - which is an accounting category), which was all fine until I saw it again months later, and couldn't immediately guess what I meant, because "vrana" means "crow".
>
>The other one was "SumPor.dbf" (suma poreza - total of taxes)... which actually means "sulphur" :).

This (abbreviating stuff) to me is the essence of the problem.
I've taken to using as many characters as it takes to clearly (to me for sure, and hopefully for others) describe the item in question.

Yet it gnerally seems to be engrained in programmers that everything is to be abbreviated. The most common 'excuse' is that it makes for faster typing.
I've found, as a 2-finger typist, that it does take modestly longer but I feel I save lots of time later, when debugging, especially when it's been a while since I was in the code.

cheers