As a follow up to an earlier question I wonder if anyone knows why Magento templates all declare their variables with an underscore. Templates are .phtml files include-ed from Mage_Core_Block_Template::fetchView(), their local variables are disposed of by the end of the function and never become global.
So what's the point of an underscore?
I think it's to respect ZF's naming convention:
For instance variables that are declared with the "private" or "protected" modifier, the first character of the variable name must be a single underscore. This is the only acceptable application of an underscore in a variable name. Member variables declared "public" should never start with an underscore.
