In that spirit, his last example could be improved: foo = cach[:foo] or foo = get_foo() or raise "Could not find foo!" foo = cach[:foo] || get_foo() ||

In that spirit, his last example could be improved: foo = cach[:foo] or foo = get_foo() or raise "Could not find foo!" foo = cach[:foo] || get_foo() || raise "Could not find foo!" And I've seen the "foo() and bar()" usage screwed up more than a few times by people not fully understanding the return value of foo()