Re: Improve readability of Perl code. Naming reference variables.

[hippo]

I think, the programmer should have a choice to decide whether he finds it advantageous to include the suffix at given place or not.

Since we are dealing with references here then the programmer clearly does have that choice. viz:

#!/usr/bin/env perl 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $var = [1, 3, 5];
my $var_aref = $var;

print "var has values: @$var\n";
print "var_aref has values: @$var_aref\n";

So you, the programmer, can pick and choose which name to use at any point (if you so desire).

[hakonhagland]

So you would prefer to introduce two reference variables? Sorry, I do not like this idea. I would prefer to keep the number of variables to a minimum. Introducing two variables just for the sake of solving a readability issue seems like a bad idea to me. What if one reference was changed later in the code? Then you must remember to update the other reference at the same place also. This clearly becomes a maintenance problem. And if you forget to update the other variable, there are potential for more confusion.