4 ms·

Try as I might, I have to reason through ternaries every time I encounter them. I think the = being so removed from what it's actually assigning, but without gr

Try as I might, I have to reason through ternaries every time I encounter them. I think the = being so removed from what it's actually assigning, but without grouping parens, is what messes me up. Plus I always forget what the punctuation characters mean—if/elseif/else uses words, so I don't have to remember.

tobr 5y ago
Just read whatever has a question mark after it with the intonation of a question, and it flows naturally.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
> I think the = being so removed from what it's actually assigning, but without grouping parens, is what messes me up. I almost always use grouping parentheses for this reason, unless it’s a very short single line expression. That said, if/else if/else has a different colocation problem: it puts the assignment further from the initial declaration, making its scope less obvious (unless you’re hoisting var, which is awful for its own reasons).
- brimble 5y ago
  Agree, the problem with if/else is that you end up having to consider the whole block plus usually a little context from just before it. I still find it much easier to read, unless very poorly written, while all ternaries slow me down every single time I read one, no matter how well-written. I struggle to parse them into ideas and words and to follow the order of events, seemingly no matter how many times I encounter them. They just feel wrong. All that implicit scoping crammed into one line, relying on memory and active searching to find the boundaries and then follow the order of events back "to the top", rather than having them explicitly marked.
erikpukinskis 5y ago
Yeah, I think nested ternaries are fine as long as it’s just a list like OP is suggesting… But it breaks peoples brains for some reason so I rarely use them professionally. It’s really not that hard though, the ? and : are just shorthand for “else if” and “then”.

tobr 5y ago

Just read whatever has a question mark after it with the intonation of a question, and it flows naturally.

eyelidlessness 5y ago

> I think the = being so removed from what it's actually assigning, but without grouping parens, is what messes me up. I almost always use grouping parentheses for this reason, unless it’s a very short single line expression. That said, if/else if/else has a different colocation problem: it puts the assignment further from the initial declaration, making its scope less obvious (unless you’re hoisting var, which is awful for its own reasons).

brimble 5y ago
Agree, the problem with if/else is that you end up having to consider the whole block plus usually a little context from just before it. I still find it much easier to read, unless very poorly written, while all ternaries slow me down every single time I read one, no matter how well-written. I struggle to parse them into ideas and words and to follow the order of events, seemingly no matter how many times I encounter them. They just feel wrong. All that implicit scoping crammed into one line, relying on memory and active searching to find the boundaries and then follow the order of events back "to the top", rather than having them explicitly marked.

erikpukinskis 5y ago

Yeah, I think nested ternaries are fine as long as it’s just a list like OP is suggesting… But it breaks peoples brains for some reason so I rarely use them professionally. It’s really not that hard though, the ? and : are just shorthand for “else if” and “then”.