Yep, looking at the IL they are equivalent. And it definitely makes code prettier due to reduced parentheses. This is also true for generics. Doing (x != null)

Yep, looking at the IL they are equivalent. And it definitely makes code prettier due to reduced parentheses. This is also true for generics. Doing (x != null), !(x is null), or (x is object) all become: ldloc.s ldnull cgt.un stloc.s