Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

Thien-Thi Nguyen <ttn@gnu.org> writes:

> Personally, i loathe 1-armed-‘if’ expressions; they
> are a blight on the smoothness, equivalent to "umm",
> "err" in a formal talk.

Ha! Yes, they look so lost and sidetracked and out of
focus. But that shouldn't stop anyone from using them.
Just like the "umm"s and "err"s in talk, which convey
information or give the talker time to formulate the
next sentence without being interrupted, the 1-armed
bandits serve a purpose.

Also, sometimes nil is what you want:

    (if nil 1)
    (if nil 1 nil)

> When i inherit code (e.g., EDB), i early-on put
> effort into killing those abominations. (This has
> the predictable side effect of introducing bugs, but
> is anyway useful for familiarizing myself w/ the
> code

Ha again! I just wrote I wouldn't do it, but this is
a great point. "May I indent your code?" is perhaps an
insult but it can be rephrased as "May I muck around
with your code until I understand it?" - at what time,
it will be re-indented as the inheritor likes it as
a positive side-effect. Learning by doing is doing by
learning! If anything can start anew, then everything
must continue!

-- 
underground experts united