Beautiful C++: 30 Core Guidelines for Writing Clean, Safe, and Fast Code

Chapter 2.2

I.23: Keep the number of function arguments low

How much should they earn?

Here’s a function declaration:

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double salary(PayGrade grade, int location_id);

It’s nice to see “double salary” at the start of a line of code; sadly, the purpose of this function is not to double your salary, but to report a salary for a particular pay grade at a particular location. Also, as remarked earlier, you should use integral types for money, so we shall redeclare this function, thus:

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int salary(PayGrade grade, int location_id);

You might see this sort of thing in a government contract: civil servant salaries are often pegged to a pay grade but will vary by location. In the UK, for example, ...