Good previous answers so just a little to add here:
-
underscores are really annoying for ESS users; given that ESS is pretty widely used you won’t see many underscores in code authored by ESS users (and that set includes a bunch of R Core as well as CRAN authors, excptions like Hadley notwithstanding);
-
dots are evil too because they can get mixed up in simple method dispatch; I believe I once read comments to this effect on one of the R list: dots are a historical artifact and no longer encouraged;
-
so we have a clear winner still standing in the last round: camelCase. I am also not sure if I really agree with the assertion of ‘lacking precendent in the R community’.
And yes: pragmatism and consistency trump dogma. So whatever works and is used by colleagues and co-authors. After all, we still have white-space and braces to argue about 🙂