From: Matthew Kerwin <matthew@...>
Date: 2012-07-21T09:03:41+09:00
Subject: Re: unless if not == unless post_on_ruby_forum

On 20 July 2012 19:10, Lars Haugseth <ruby-talk@larshaugseth.com> wrote:
> On 07/20/2012 06:17 AM, Matthew Kerwin wrote:
>>
>> [unless is] most useful for perl-esque one-liners:
>>
>>    die unless it_worked
>
>
> Personally I find the following much more readable:
>
>   do_something or
>     raise SomethingFailedException

Me too, usually.  Sometimes it's the case that, for example, you've
iterated through a large collection, performing actions on members and
whatever, and then at the end you only want to proceed if certain
conditions were met during iteration.  Then, depending on how you
track the conditions, `bail unless more_needs_to_be_done` can be
appropriate.  It always depends on the situation, and where you want
to trade off readability and maintainability (and, sometimes,
efficiency.)

-- 
  Matthew Kerwin, B.Sc (CompSci) (Hons)
  http://matthew.kerwin.net.au/
  ABN: 59-013-727-651

  "You'll never find a programming language that frees
  you from the burden of clarifying your ideas." - xkcd