Picking names for your variables might seem like an afterthought in light of everything we've learned about access modifiers and types, but it shouldn't be a trivial choice. Clear and consistent naming conventions in your code will not only make it more readable, but will also ensure that other developers on your team understand your intentions without having to ask.

Best practices

The first rule of a variable name is that it be meaningful; the second, that you use camel case. Let's take a common example from games and declare a variable to store a player's health:

public int health = 100;

If you find yourself declaring a variable like this, alarm bells should be going off in your head. Whose health? Is it storing the maximum or minimum value? What other code will be affected when this value changes? These are all questions that should be easily answered by a meaningful variable name; you...