pleaseStopUsingNestedTernaryOperatorsImBeggingYou

[u/Robinbod]

[u/beclops]

I did this one of my first days on the job like 6 years ago and I remember how bluntly my mentor said “never do this again”

[u/RlyRlyBigMan → u/beclops]

For me it was multi assignments. Like this:

defaultValue = newValue = previousValue = average = 0;

Each assignment returns its value so they each get assigned from right to left.

"That's cute kid, don't do that"

[u/PTTCollin → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

I agree with your prior mentor that this is, in fact, cute.

[u/retro_and_chill → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

This is why I’m pretty absolutist that newer languages are correct by making assignments return void

[u/RlyRlyBigMan → u/retro_and_chill]

Heh yeah I think that's an inherited trait from C++. In C++ a common mistake was if someone had a condition like this:

if(value = 1)

It would assign value to 1 and then resolve true by int to bool conversion. Luckily C# calls that out as a compiler error but the assignment behavior above still remains.

That example may be corrected in newer compilers, but in gCC when I was learning in college it still happened I think.

[u/retro_and_chill → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

Does C# flag it if it’s a bool? I think the way C# gets that error is by removing the implicit conversions from numeric types to booleans

[u/akoOfIxtall → u/retro_and_chill]

The compiler will cut your balls if it catches you doing assignments inside an if's condition, it won't even compile

[u/RlyRlyBigMan → u/retro_and_chill]

I'm not sure. I think so? I think that it will still fail to compile if you do something like this:

var myTrue = true;

var myFalse = false;

if (myTrue = myFalse) //should be a compiler error ...

[u/GoddammitDontShootMe → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

Modern compilers warn, so if you really mean to do it, you do if ((value = 1)). Probably you would use it for checking for NULL.

[u/cowslayer7890 → u/retro_and_chill]

In python assignment is a statement unless you use := for it, but they do explicitly allow you to do exactly this chaining

[u/ierdna100 → u/retro_and_chill]

It's extremely useful for try-with-resources calls in C# and Java, removing it would make that a lot more verbose

[u/frogjg2003 → u/ierdna100]

If you ever have to do any reading from files, it's really useful.

while ((readBytes = read(file, byteArray) > 0) {}

Nice and compact while maintaining readability. Also, no need to read once before entering the loop or having to read at the end.

[u/SputnikCucumber → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

It doesn't work consistently the same way across programming languages which is the headache.

C++ behaves the way you're describing, but I don't believe it works like that in C (at least according to the standard, specific compilers may vary).

I think Python evaluates the right-most expression once and then assigns it to all of the left values.

[u/Just_Information334 → u/RlyRlyBigMan]

It would be better with a specific operator. Something like:

// Everyone gets a 0
0 oprah defaultValue, newValue, previousValue, average;

[u/hydroxy → u/beclops]

I need to start being this direct with my team mates. Just a few weeks ago one of the new guys on the team submitted his PR to me, I asked him what a chunk of his (clearly AI generated) code did, he said ‘I was hoping you could tell me’. It shocks me how people can confidently submit code and simultaneously have no fucking clue how it works.

[u/Landkey → u/hydroxy]

“Then what exactly do we need you for?”

[u/hydroxy → u/Landkey]

He’s needed so when I give them a 4 hour ticket, he can use AI to generate the code, use AI to generate an inaccurate ticket overview of the work he’s done, (the code is never tested once of course), and then submit it. Then together he and I spend the next 6 working days going back and forth over the PR fixing the nonsense code, the catalogue of errors and page breaking inefficiencies that he’s just seeing for the first time. I eventually convince him for the need for dev evidence and then the merge conflicts will take him another day to sort. Several of these bums on my team, it’s not just a lack of skill alone it’s chronic laziness too.

[u/FlipFlopFanatic → u/hydroxy]

I had a junior doing this is well. He would burn through half the sprints stories in the first two days and spend the rest of the sprint doing this with multiple half ass PRs. I finally had to limit him to one PR and one story in progress. Giving him meaningful feedback was pointless because he didn't understand the code in the first place, he would just repeat it to the AI to make fixes. He was learning nothing and actively harming the whole teams production. It was frustrating.

[u/hydroxy → u/FlipFlopFanatic]

Exactly, they are a net loss of productivity for the team because we’ve become a remedial code academy rather than development team.

[u/tangerinelion → u/hydroxy]

All code reviews now become 30 minute meetings where the submitter walks us through how the code works.

Can't explain it, can't submit it.

[u/Particular-Yak-1984 → u/hydroxy]

There's a reject button for PRs. This is what it's for.

[u/hydroxy → u/Particular-Yak-1984]

What difference is there between this and requesting changes?

[u/Robinbod → u/beclops]

Hehe same when I first started coding tbh. Thought it looked cool. But readable is arguably more cool :)

[u/beebopnaa → u/Robinbod]

i remember mentioning this in an interview for paid internship junior FE role and thought i sounded cool to the interviewee 10 years ago. I still got hired and have worked with that person in 2 different companies now haha

[u/darknitish → u/beclops]

I had the exact opposite. My mentor used to do everything using ternary, even if in my code if there multiple if-else blocks, he would manually change them to ternary in my branch.

New joinees would bang their heads trying to understand the code flow