Interesting discussion, but apart from (and above, really) the syntax (incl. comments) impact on semantics, I find that code design is of superior importance for maintainability; Consider design principles such as Separation of Concerns, Orthogonality, Extensibility, Testability (quote On-Writing-Maintainable-Code) : 

Can I find the code related to the problem or the requested change? Go
+od Naming, High Cohesion, Single Responsibility Principle, Separation
+ of Concerns

Can I understand the code? Good Naming, Composed Method, The Principle
+ of Least Surprise, Can You See The Flow of the Code?, Encapsulation 

Is it easy to change the code? Don't Repeat Yourself, Wormhole Anti-Pa
+ttern, Open Closed Principle 

Can I quickly verify my changes in isolation? Loose Coupling, High Coh
+esion, Testability 

Can I make the change with a low risk of breaking existing features? L
+oose Coupling, High Cohesion, Open Closed Principle, Testability

Will I know if and why something is broken? Fail Fast

[download]

Best regards,
Allan Dystrup

In reply to Re: Code Maintainability by ady
in thread Code Maintainability by mpeever

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.