wtf? Yeah, if I changed the variable names to, say, $rat, $whale, and $cow that would mean something to you?
To whom is ||= easier to read rather than my more straightforward conditional?
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.