3 ms·

Oh, I didn't realize that had a name! My boss does that, and it is incredibly irritating.

• leftnode 16y ago
  Until you're system is crippled by a bug as a result of not using them.
  • masklinn 16y ago
    This is something that cannot happen in Python. Yoda conditions are entirely pointless in that language.
    • moe 16y ago
      A good programmer looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
      • 146 16y ago
        A better programmer uses -Wall and lets the compiler check for him.
        • moe 16y ago
          Confidence, n.: The feeling you have before you understand the situation
• acangiano 16y ago
  Not in this case, but Yoda conditions can be useful. The most common case is preventing accidental assignment when you are trying to check for the equality of values. Say that you mean to do: if (something == 2) If you forget an equal sign, the resulting code can lead to subtile bugs: if (something = 2) // Not what we meant If you are using a Yoda condition and forget an equal sign, you'll get an error right away (so that you can correct it): if (2 = something) // Error There are other use cases, particularly related to nil values, but this should show you the gist of it.
  • masklinn 16y ago
    > Not in this case, but Yoda conditions can be useful. Not in Python. Assignments as anything but stand-alone (potentially chained) statements are syntax errors. The parser will not let you write if something = 2: in the first place.
    • acangiano 16y ago
      That's why I said "not in this case". There are languages affected by this though (typically C-based ones). Ideally, their compiler will give you a warning about it, but that's not always the case.
• moe 16y ago
  May be irritating for some but good practice regardless. Putting the constant left in a conditional means you will never miss an accidental = instead of ==.
  • masklinn 16y ago
    > Putting the constant left in a conditional means you will never miss an accidental = instead of ==. That's only useful for dumb languages >>> a = 5 >>> if a = 3: print 'ok'; else: print 'nok' File "<stdin>", line 1 if a = 3: print 'ok'; else: print 'nok' ^ SyntaxError: invalid syntax Python simply does not allow assignments in conditional contexts.
    • moe 16y ago
      Dumb is a strong word, young padawan. The difference between theory and practice is smaller in theory than in practice.
      • masklinn 16y ago
        > Dumb is a strong word, young padawan. I carefully weighted my words, and I rest my case.
    • 146 16y ago
      > That's only useful for dumb languages The compilers/interpreters I know that don't do this are PHP and Perl (C/C++ will do it if you use -Wall, which you should be using anyway). So yeah, you're pretty much right. /snark
      • chromatic 16y ago
        Perl does indeed warn about the use of = instead of == in a conditional.
        • 146 16y ago
          You're right; I didn't know about the -w setting. I guess that just leaves PHP.