3 ms·

I feel like I have read if statements so many times that I have fast pattern matching circuits in my brain for them. When I come across an `unless`, I can't us

I feel like I have read if statements so many times that I have fast pattern matching circuits in my brain for them. When I come across an `unless`, I can't use them; I have to come back out into "conscious reading" mode, or something like that. Makes me crazy.

nickelcitymario 4y ago
That makes sense!
eloisius 4y ago
I'm a recovering rubyist (actually I still love ruby, just never get to write it anymore). The only times I felt `unless` was truly more readable than `if !something` was when it was used in the conditional suffix form like do_something unless already_done?
- pantulis 4y ago
  This is the poster child use case for "unless", IMHO. Anything else (at least for me) is more difficult to read, it's probably due to being exposed to all thos other languages that do not have that syntactic construct. Using C syntax conditionals feels more natural to me, but again this is all opinionated.
- captaincaveman 4y ago
  do_something if not already_done? Problem with so much syntactic sugar is you need to retain/recall the semantics of the vocabulary. As a polyglot programmer who doesn't write much code anymore, it slows me down.
mathstuf 4y ago
Same here. I can handle chaining conditions and narrowing things down, but once there's a De Morgan's filter on the thing, there's just too much state to juggle because what's in front of my eyes is not a refresher for what I actually need to remember ("ok, it says `n < 0`…(De Morgan filter)…n is positive" is too much IMO). That said, I feel it's really down to double+ negation being hard to handle. `if` with a single negation is fine; `unless` is automatically a negation, so you're just off to a bad start on that front. I feel like the only viable use is in a case like Rust's `let … else { diverge }` where anything that fails the condition is guaranteed to diverge (typically, return) and I can just ignore it when reading the overall codeflow. But Ruby mixes that up and does `diverge unless …` which puts the diverging part "up front" and "in the way" for such readings.
areichert 4y ago
Man, I feel like you hit the nail on the head here... this is definitely the best way I could think to articulate why `unless` throws me off so much. Weirdly, Ruby was one of the first languages I learned early in my career, and at the time I had no problem with `unless`. But after years of experience with other languages, I similarly feel that `if` statements now trigger the fast pattern matching circuits in my brain, while `unless` makes me do a double-take and basically translate it into `if not` At first I thought I was just becoming dumber with age, but I like your explanation better :P

nickelcitymario 4y ago

That makes sense!

eloisius 4y ago

I'm a recovering rubyist (actually I still love ruby, just never get to write it anymore). The only times I felt `unless` was truly more readable than `if !something` was when it was used in the conditional suffix form like do_something unless already_done?

pantulis 4y ago
This is the poster child use case for "unless", IMHO. Anything else (at least for me) is more difficult to read, it's probably due to being exposed to all thos other languages that do not have that syntactic construct. Using C syntax conditionals feels more natural to me, but again this is all opinionated.
captaincaveman 4y ago
do_something if not already_done? Problem with so much syntactic sugar is you need to retain/recall the semantics of the vocabulary. As a polyglot programmer who doesn't write much code anymore, it slows me down.

mathstuf 4y ago

Same here. I can handle chaining conditions and narrowing things down, but once there's a De Morgan's filter on the thing, there's just too much state to juggle because what's in front of my eyes is not a refresher for what I actually need to remember ("ok, it says `n < 0`…(De Morgan filter)…n is positive" is too much IMO). That said, I feel it's really down to double+ negation being hard to handle. `if` with a single negation is fine; `unless` is automatically a negation, so you're just off to a bad start on that front. I feel like the only viable use is in a case like Rust's `let … else { diverge }` where anything that fails the condition is guaranteed to diverge (typically, return) and I can just ignore it when reading the overall codeflow. But Ruby mixes that up and does `diverge unless …` which puts the diverging part "up front" and "in the way" for such readings.

areichert 4y ago

Man, I feel like you hit the nail on the head here... this is definitely the best way I could think to articulate why `unless` throws me off so much. Weirdly, Ruby was one of the first languages I learned early in my career, and at the time I had no problem with `unless`. But after years of experience with other languages, I similarly feel that `if` statements now trigger the fast pattern matching circuits in my brain, while `unless` makes me do a double-take and basically translate it into `if not` At first I thought I was just becoming dumber with age, but I like your explanation better :P