- But readability counts. Having written a lot of Java and Obj-C lately, I honestly prefer the ability to write "if (foo && foo->bar && foo->bar->baz)" in the l

- But readability counts. Having written a lot of Java and Obj-C lately, I honestly prefer the ability to write "if (foo && foo->bar && foo->bar->baz)" in the latter. - Frankly, it's not a very complicated table. "Zero, empty, or none" summarizes it pretty well. http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/lib/truth.html http://docs.python.org/release/2.5.2/lib/truth.html - Of course conventions vary across languages. If you're familiar with perl, awk, or ruby, some of these conventions will be familiar to you. If you're more familiar with Java, they'll feel odd and you'll feel an uncertainty using them.