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And I'm not even saying there's no correlation between the bugs ratio and the convention. Since it's more dated, I'd expect it to be followed more often in old codebases that have reached maturity longer ago. This would be sort of circumstantial though and doesn't indicate this is good practice.
I don't know why one would dismiss Google's modern style guide as non-mainstream, and it's a bit of a stretch to imply that memory leaks in Google Maps are a result of not using "m" prefixes in the codebase, unless you have something to substantiate this allegation. For all I know they may actually be used over there, and then what :) Because Google isn't 100% consistent, e.g. the prefixes are prevalent in Android SDK sources (I see that as a legacy thing). We may disagree on that, but it's good to expose beginners to differing points of view so they can make their own mind.
"not abiding by Java naming conventions immediately flags you to your peers as not a real Java programmer..." - that's a really blunt statement Kevin. Which naming conventions? For instance Google style guide explicitly says it's a no-no, see google.github.io/styleguide/javaguide.html "In Google Style special prefixes or suffixes, like those seen in the examples name_, mName, s_name and kName, are not used".
