I agree that relatively large functions aren't always an evil. As you say, sometimes there isn't a tidy way to further decompose it. At the same time though I d

I agree that relatively large functions aren't always an evil. As you say, sometimes there isn't a tidy way to further decompose it. At the same time though I don't think it's always a sin to write a function just for decomposition, without it doing any abstraction. A 'helper function' might be tightly bound to some other function, i.e. the helper function is sensitive to the internal workings of the function it serves, and is not intended to be called from anywhere else. And there's still no excuse for source files that are 5000 lines long, of course. HN discussion of John Carmack's thoughts on how long functions are sometimes preferable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8374345