From: Robert Klemme <shortcutter@...>
Date: 2008-10-03T05:38:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Is Assignment in a Conditional an Idiom?

On 02.10.2008 20:35, worthee@gmail.com wrote:
> I was just reading the following blog post
> http://www.elctech.com/blog/clarity-over-cleverness-but-what-is-clever,
> and like the author, it is the first time I have seen code as he
> describes.  From the comments it would seem that some think it is an
> idiom to be used, and perhaps others do not.
> 
> Just curious as to how common this use it?  I do tend to side with
> view that it is not clear at first glance.

I believe this is a bad idiom.  First, the test for "comments" is not 
needed because "String === comments" will be false if "comments" is nil. 
  The statement would have been written much clearer as

comments = @attributes['comments'])

if comments.is_a? String
   @attributes['comments'] = comments.split(" ")
end

or

comments = @attributes['comments'])
@attributes['comments'] = comments.split(" ") if comments.is_a? String

or

comments = @attributes['comments'])
@attributes['comments'] = comments.split(" ") if String === comments

There is only one situation where assignment in a conditional actually 
makes code clearer and that is with loops, e.g.

while line = io.gets
   puts line
end

My 0.02EUR

Kind regards

	robert