comment on

I put the shortest block in the if part, and the longer block in the else part, so the introductory clause

still visible in the editor window when you're reviewing the second part of the conditional. It becomes easy to say "yes, I'm here because that conditional just up there evaluated to false", because you can see it.

Interesting.

I just make sure the conditional as clear as possible, so I'll have if ( SomeCondition) { .. or unless ( SomeCondition ) { ..; then the blocks follow logically after that.

Under your guideline, my code

if ( SomeCondition ) {

  $this = 'that';
  $foo = 'bar;

  $quux{'quaz'} = [ $this, $that ];

  #  More code follows ..

} else {

  $this = 'the other';
}
[download]

would be rewritten as

if ( !SomeCondition ) {

  $this = 'the other';

} else {

  $this = 'that';
  $foo = 'bar;

  $quux{'quaz'} = [ $this, $that ];

  #  More code follows ..
}
[download]

I find that harder to read, because I would need to take the condition, reverse it, and then follow what's going on in the first block. For the second block, I'd have to go back to the original, un-reversed condition.

It's just not the way my brain works. ;)

Alex / talexb / Toronto

"Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

In reply to Re^3: Coding styles using if/else by talexb
in thread Coding styles using if/else by sulfericacid

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