Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

L.2. A Brief History

Currently, the most common naming conventions used in Access applications, Microsoft product documentation, and reference books are based on the Hungarian notation. That notation was created by a Hungarian, Charles Simonyi, while working at Microsoft in the 1980s. In the Access world, Greg Reddick and Stan Leszynski further developed and popularized the naming convention. Greg published the Reddick VBA (RVBA) Naming Conventions at www.xoc.net/standards/rvbanc.asp. The Leszynski Naming Conventions (LNC) and development style continue to be referenced in several books and have been incorporated in various websites. Because URLs frequently change, a search is probably the best bet for finding a publication of the LNC.

So much for the history. The critical part is to recognize that the Hungarian notation is pretty much universally recognized, if not adopted, and that it continues to be adapted to keep up with technology. Some tags are becoming obsolete and new ones are continuously added. Although some tags may be retired, there are still programs using them, so it is handy to know where to find a translator, which, in this case, is a table of tag definitions.