From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-09-02T04:13:05+09:00
Subject: Re: When clever is stupid [RANT]

David Vallner wrote:
> Here, have a cookie. A Cookie of Clarity. It has extra doses of golf
> urge repellent.
> 
> Usually, the problem is the "clever" solution was stupid since the
> start. I see nothing clever about just randomly stuffing some logic into
> as few characters as possible - (ab)using the syntax flexibility makes
> sense when you can achieve let's say a reordering of the terms that's
> more natural (not necessarily quick) to read than the more common would
> be. That example line of code just requires me to keep the whole ternary
> conditional operator in my head as I try to mentally evaluate the
> condition.
> 
> Ternary operators are inherently evil whenever nested, although a bit
> more terse in the good term when used as a single expression. Putting
> the "else" result on a newline and indenting the ? with the : considered
> sexy, I find it very easy to visually separate the condition and the
> different results then using the quadrants split up by the operator.

I'm not a big fan of nested conditionals -- there's usually an elegant
refactoring that can be done when you have them. In fact, I'm not a big
fan of nested anything. :)