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From: Kaz Kylheku <643-408-1753@kylheku.com>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages
Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2024 01:01:48 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 2024-04-05, Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
>
>    On Fri, 5 Apr 2024 09:17:37 -0000 (UTC), Muttley wrote:
>    ...
>    >>    a =
>    >>        b ?
>    >>            c ? d : e
>    >>        : f ?
>    >>            g ? h : i
>    >>        : j;
>    > 
>    > Just use brackets. Saves a lot of pain.
>
>        a=(b?(c?d:e):(f?(g?h:i):j));
>
> A normal programmer would write something like:
>
>     a = b ? (c ? d : e) : 
>         f ? (g ? h : i) :
>         j;
>
> I.e., she would allow herself to use spaces and newlines, and just
> enough parentheses to make the structure clear.

It looks good, undeniably.

However, I cannot tell at a glance whether or not the nice appearance
isn't telling me some kind of lie. That's an inherent problem with
the ternary operator.

I have to remember that = has lower precedence than ?:. But, ==
has higher precedence. So this careless edit makes it wrong,
even though it still looks just as nice:

      a == b ? (c ? d : e) : 
           f ? (g ? h : i) :
           j;

-- 
TXR Programming Language: http://nongnu.org/txr
Cygnal: Cygwin Native Application Library: http://kylheku.com/cygnal
Mastodon: @Kazinator@mstdn.ca