I came across a function today that made me stop and think. I can't think of a good reason to do it:

sub replace_string {
        my $string  = shift;
        my $regex   = shift;
        my $replace = shift;

        $string =~ s/$regex/$replace/gi;

        return $string;
}

The only possible value I can see to this is that it gives you the ability to control the default options used with a substitution, but I don't consider that useful. My first reaction upon seeing this function get called is "what does this do?". Once I learn what it does, I am going to assume it does that from that point on. Which means if it changes, it will break any of my code that needs it to do that. This means the function will likely never change, or changing it will break lots of code.

Right now I want to track down the original programmer and beat some sense into him or her. Is this a valid desire, or am I missing some value this function brings to the table?