Joel Spolsky is not impressed by coding conventions. He says something like “When I was program manager on the Excel team…” in a [podcast](http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail207.html) at [IT Conversations](http://www.itconversations.com).
Here is a clip where mentions the coding conventions. The clip was made with ITC’s fine PHP tool to “Create a Clip or Excerpt”. Makes me involved.