"It's a fix for a fix for a fix, apparently," writes Joan.

In this case, it's some Ruby code, which… gets a bit repetitive in that it repeats itself and does the same thing over and over again, in a repetitive fashion. Repeats.

    def index
        payment_service_parameters = { external_type: PaymentService::CANCEL_TYPES, state: 'pending' }
        payment_service_parameters.merge!(params.fetch(:transfer_groups, {})) if params[:transfer_groups].present?

        payment_service_parameters = { state: 'pending', external_type: PaymentService::CANCEL_TYPES }
        if params[:transfer_groups].present?
          payment_service_parameters = params.fetch(:transfer_groups, {})
          payment_service_parameters[:external_type].reject!(&:blank?)
          payment_service_parameters[:external_type] = PaymentService::CANCEL_TYPES if payment_service_parameters[:external_type].blank?
        end

        render locals: { transfer_groups: load_transfer_groups(payment_service_parameters) }
    end

We start by populating the payment_service_parameters property with a default value. Then, we check the params collection and, if it has a :transfer_groups key, we update the payment_service_parameters. Then we blow that away and reset the payment_service_parameters back to the original value.

Then we check for :transfer_groups in the params collection again, and if it exists we replace the entirety of payment_service_parameters with :transfer_groups, but then we make sure the key :external_type has a value.

This is the sort of code that clearly was written by someone who didn't know what the code was supposed to do and just kept adding lines until the errors go away. Joan agrees:

Nobody asked what should the code do. The more you look at it, the worse it gets. Every check is done three times. But there are still several possible errors.