Point-free style can be useful as an intermediate step when refactoring, since making code point-free (a) is largely mechanical (although judgement can still us

Point-free style can be useful as an intermediate step when refactoring, since making code point-free (a) is largely mechanical (although judgement can still useful to avoid horrible results!), and (b) removes many of the abstractions and variable names in the code. The latter are often historical baggage, telling us what the code used to do, or was meant to do; whilst a point-free version shows us more directly what it actually does. If the point-free version makes sense as-is, we can leave it; but that's rarely the case. Usually, we'll introduce a few abstractions and variables; but this time they'll be more appropriate for the current codebase.