Yeah, if I changed the variable names to, say, $rat, $whale, and $cow that would mean something to you?

Is the algorithm you're trying to prototype about rats, whales, and cows?

To whom is ||= easier to read rather than my more straightforward conditional?

To me, for one. It's a fairly prevalent idiom for initializing variables, to the extent that Perl 6's //operator is directly derived from this use of ||.

Your post is obvious drivel designed to troll for a couple of extra XP from people who don't read posts thoroughly. If you were one of my engineers and this was the only crap you could come up with during a code review I'd fire you.

Is this is how you usually react to constructive criticism? Petty ad hominem attacks?

--
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!
/msg me if you downvote this node, please.
:wq