From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2006-05-10T01:23:25+09:00
Subject: Re: code snippet: can it be done better/shorter?

On 5/9/06, Jacob Fugal <lukfugl@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/9/06, Krekna Mektek <krekna@gmail.com> wrote:
> > A bit late, but I was reading this post again, but your code is
> > actually not the same, if I understood  you right.
> >
> > because from is assigned "Unknown" if it's an empty string.
> > And from || "Unknown" results in true if from is defined, so the value
> > "Unknown" is not assigned to it. Right?
>
> The value "Unknown" will not be assigned to from, but it doesn't need
> to be. An expression of the form 'a || b' is equivalent to this:
>
>   a ? a : b
Which is unfortunately not true because of  possible side effects, in
our case however there are none and it was a *nice way* to explain
things, but watch out for method calls.

>
> or more verbosely:
>
>   if a then a else b end
>
some as above but clearer.
This is an interesting case for forcing () on method calls
I like the ruby way but the potential problem with side effects
becomes so much clearer
in case of

 a() ? a() : whatever

which still is perfect ruby code :)

Cheers
Robert


--
Deux choses sont infinies : l'univers et la b�tise humaine ; en ce qui
concerne l'univers, je n'en ai pas acquis la certitude absolue.

- Albert Einstein