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I'm completely baffled that people find the ternary operator difficult to scan. The concept is simple. The syntax can be terse, but it doesn't have to be. Mode

I'm completely baffled that people find the ternary operator difficult to scan. The concept is simple. The syntax can be terse, but it doesn't have to be. Modestly capable Excel users take advantage of something just like it. The only time I've ever seen it become difficult is when either the conditional or result expressions get hairy or depend on undescriptive variable names. And when that's the case, well, you're going to have the same problem with the expressions in your if/else, albeit spread out over a few more lines by convention (which one could do with a ternary expression just as well). I'm at the point where I suspect complaints about the ternary operator are a cargo cult repetition thing, and the developers who are scared of it are scared because they were either taught by someone else to be scared, or they're suffering from a confirmation bias problem where they notice confusing conditionals more when they're associated with the operator.

hurin 12y ago
> The only time I've ever seen it become difficult is when either the conditional or result expressions get hairy or depend on undescriptive variable names. It's definitely possibly to write obfuscated ridiculous code without the ternary operator -- but I think that's part of the whole "go-lang mentality". Would I leave unused declarations in production code? No. Do I have a problem with a compiler that doesn't let me test code with a function call commented out without also commenting out all the other variables/functions that are now unused as a result? Yes. > I'm at the point where I suspect complaints about the ternary operator are a cargo cult repetition thing, and the developers who are scared of it are scared because they were either taught by someone else to be scared, or they're suffering from a confirmation bias problem where they notice confusing conditionals more when they're associated with the operator. I definitely don't think Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are getting confused -- it's more like they took a utilitarian view of the situation and decided - if the average code-base is made better or easier to read by this change, then it's worth it. The over-all result is a language that appears to be easy to pick up and productive at least for those who use it - but it's hardly exciting or fun to code in.
yarrel 12y ago
It's not a cargo cult thing, it's inherited wisdom borne out by painful experience. Like goto and braceless single-expression blocks they are so easy to misuse that they can easily be much more trouble than they're worth. Simple ternaries can be useful in trading off the unreadability of verbosity for the unreadability of compactness. Real Programmers should know how and when to use them. But nested ternary expressions are basically trolling...

hurin 12y ago

> The only time I've ever seen it become difficult is when either the conditional or result expressions get hairy or depend on undescriptive variable names. It's definitely possibly to write obfuscated ridiculous code without the ternary operator -- but I think that's part of the whole "go-lang mentality". Would I leave unused declarations in production code? No. Do I have a problem with a compiler that doesn't let me test code with a function call commented out without also commenting out all the other variables/functions that are now unused as a result? Yes. > I'm at the point where I suspect complaints about the ternary operator are a cargo cult repetition thing, and the developers who are scared of it are scared because they were either taught by someone else to be scared, or they're suffering from a confirmation bias problem where they notice confusing conditionals more when they're associated with the operator. I definitely don't think Rob Pike and Ken Thompson are getting confused -- it's more like they took a utilitarian view of the situation and decided - if the average code-base is made better or easier to read by this change, then it's worth it. The over-all result is a language that appears to be easy to pick up and productive at least for those who use it - but it's hardly exciting or fun to code in.

yarrel 12y ago

It's not a cargo cult thing, it's inherited wisdom borne out by painful experience. Like goto and braceless single-expression blocks they are so easy to misuse that they can easily be much more trouble than they're worth. Simple ternaries can be useful in trading off the unreadability of verbosity for the unreadability of compactness. Real Programmers should know how and when to use them. But nested ternary expressions are basically trolling...