I think he's complaining that it doesn't read like English. You aren't testing null, you are testing the variable. There is an implication that the subject of

I think he's complaining that it doesn't read like English. You aren't testing null, you are testing the variable. There is an implication that the subject of the "sentence" will come first. Of course English order is idiomatic in most programming languages, but I don't think that means you can't have other idioms if there is a reason. I find it amusing that he complains about abusing fluent interfaces (making it read like English for no real benefit), but doesn't realize that he's doing the same thing here. That's why you have coding standards on your team. People agree on the idioms they use. Some people need to be told that it isn't an idiom if only one person likes it, though ;-)