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in reply to Re: What is code readability?
in thread What is code readability?

$fee = determine_maximum_fee();

sub determine_total_fee {

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Refactoring error? Is it determine_maximum_fee() or determine_total_fee? And that name that is overly verbose. 
  $fee = ($tfee / 100 + $sfee/100 + 0.0000001) * 100

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...what in the world is this doing? If I had to guess, I'd say it is a hack to misuse floating point numbers, instead of using something like Math::Currency, although I'd expect to see some calls to int(). And it diddles with global variable $foo. 
  $mfee = 200 if ($fee >= 100);

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...refers to global variables $mfee and $fee. And $mfee is non-descript. And we should at least have a comment explaining the magic numbers 100 and 200. 
  $fee = $mfee if $mfee;

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...this is seems like it is probably a horrible hack to avoid warnings about undef. 
  return $fee;
}

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I'd probably not refactor into a subroutine, instead using a proper data type and something like... 
use constant BREAK_POINT => 100;
use constant BONUS_FEE   => 200;

my $total_fee = $tfee+$rfee >= BREAK_POINT ? BONUS_FEE : $tfee+$rfee;

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Re^3: What is code readability?
by Herkum (Parson) on Jan 03, 2007 at 06:21 UTC

    You do bring up some good points about the code, however the problem is not with the code or its execution but its context. By moving the code into a function it should help declare a context of what is going to happen even if it hides what it is exactly doing.

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      Maybe you should post what you think the real subroutine should look like. I suspect that the code is not being used more than once, there by negating the biggest incentive to turn it into a separate procedure. By the time you rewrite it properly, (by removing references to global variables, passing in parameters, etc.), it'll be longer and harder to understand. I'll go out on a limb here and say all the context you need is provided by an appropriate variable name, like $total_fee, for instance. But there's a chance that we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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