Clever tricks are all well and good until they bite you on the ass. Using the || to provide default parameters is great until you want to use booleans. Take the

Clever tricks are all well and good until they bite you on the ass. Using the || to provide default parameters is great until you want to use booleans. Take the following code: function f(x) { x = x || true; ...} Guess what x will be if you call x(false). Guess which muggins made this mistake without thinking about it (ahem) :-) The moral of the story - don't get too complacent with clever tricks.