At 11:01 28.06.2001 -0700, Peter Scott wrote:
>"Readable" is like "obscene" (in more ways than one, in some code I've
>seen). I spent a little time in my book (one day I hope to have to say
>which book :-) going over pros and cons of different takes on this. But
>as it stands, "readable" is simply meaningless, and guaranteed to cause
>friction. Your elaboration doesn't help either. "Readable" is only
>meaningful in a context of how the code is going to be used and what your
>tactical and strategic goals are. Debating it in a virtual vacuum like
>this is what I call a "pinhead" discusssion - how many angels can dance on
>the head of a pin...
If you define "readable" as "simple enough for the extreme beginner to
understand", I agree. This is not only obscene, it also makes it
impossible to take full advantage of the language, as some constructs are
necessarily complicated, and require a firm understanding of Perl to decipher.
However, I think a general level of non-obfuscation can be reached. When
working in groups, it becomes a necessity. It's a matter of finding a
common style in the group. This saves time when someone is on vacation and
you have to fix a bug in their code. If they go around naming variables $x
and $y instead of $names and $sizes (or, even better, $raNames and
$raSizes), you spend a lot of time just figuring out what's going on. Many
will argue (correctly) that no decent programmer would name his or her
variables $x and $y outside of a for loop. However, rejecting readability
out of hand as catering to beginners leads to similar behavior. I always
prefer an extra line of code in the spirit of readability. If nothing
else, it saves me from getting phone calls when I should be laying on the
beach :)
Aaron Craig
Programming
iSoftitler.com
