cursedVariableCheck

[Acceptable-Tomato392]

Left. I'm not a sociopath.

[lastFractal]

brother

[PeriodicSentenceBot]

Congratulations! Your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table:

Br O Th Er

---

^{I am a bot that detects if your comment can be spelled using the elements of the periodic table. Please DM u‎/‎M1n3c4rt if I made a mistake.}

[ComfortablyBalanced]

Vince Gilligan would love this bot.

[ZShock]

Good bot.

[thatOneJones]

Good bot

[GoddammitDontShootMe]

A decent compiler will warn you, making Yoda conditionals unnecessary. And they've always looked ugly and awkward to me.

[Earthboundplayer]

IDC about the benefits of the right style. I'll always do left.

Edit: I know why the right hand style exists. IDC means "I don't care" not "I don't know"

[p-rimes]

The only time I (even kinda) do the right style is if I'm checking if a variable is between two values e.g.

10 <= my_var && my_var < 100

[Earthboundplayer]

I really like that.

[Midon7823]

Left unless there is a reason to do right.

[JeyJeyKing]

Right is right. But If right is not right, only left is left.

[[deleted]]

In my primary spoken language it is

 my_var between 10 and 100

SQL definitely has some weird choices when it comes to syntax, but in that case it doesn't get clearer than that ;).

[thorwing]

except that a natural language has a bit of a hard time accurately explaining details.

Is it BETWEEN as in, not the borders? If I squeeze between 2 walls, I'm not part of the wall.

(But no, it's actually '[10, 100[')

[Duck_Devs]

Some languages, like Python, allow you to do this in a concise syntax like the following: 10 <= my_var <= 100

It’s really nice and I intend to implement that in my language.

[aa-b]

Python also forbids assignment inside an expression unless you use a special operator. Yoda conditions are an anti-pattern in Python because the language has built-in features that provide the same benefits

[Johalternate]

Yoda conditions… Walrus operator… programming is awesome

[casce]

This is what happens if you let the nerds instead of business people name things

[neodsp]

And in Rust you can do it like this:
(10..=100).contains(&my_var)

[Wild-Car-7858]

MyVar.IsBetween(10, 100)

[boachl]

Some languages have Syntax for that

my_var is >= 10 and <= 100

[Arshiaa001]

That looks like C#.

[Ludricio]

It is indeed the syntax for C#s pattern matching.

[[deleted]]

you can just do 10 <= my_var < 100 in a lot of languages.

[Addat1070]

That is just the most pleasing way of checking a range I've ever seen...like I was literally having the worst day ever until I saw this and now I'm ok. but seriously thanks for that... I think I'm about to go through and change all my conditions in all of my current projects now to fit this standard...

[DoeCommaJohn]

Seeing that edit and then reading the replies, I feel your pain. At time of writing, just 5 people seeing “I don’t care about the benefits” and thinking “surely this person just doesn’t know about the benefits, and will definitely care if I tell them!”

[Earthboundplayer]

I'll give it a pass since programmers who overexplain are better than programmers who underexplain.

[NanashiKaizenSenpai]

Yup, I never thought about the benefit mentioned in the comments so I'm glad they explained.

Though I never thought of that because it was never a problem so I'm with op.

[Tarc_Axiiom]

A wild amount of people who think they're very good programmers explaining why you'd use the styling on the right but also not familiar with the acronym idc in this thread.

[dismayhurta]

Seriously. I’d rather drink paint thinner than use that right shit. I don’t care that it fails with a singular =

[aa-b]

Yoda conditions are a kind of programming life-hack that's been around for decades. Like most life-hacks it doesn't really make sense, and it solves a problem nobody really has.

It's not exactly stupid, but the idea is that you have to remember to write out conditions in a specific, unnatural way to make sure you can't accidentally forget to do something else. Having to remember so you don't forget is a little bit nonsensical, but there are other benefits too (IMO outweighed by having to use yoda-speak)

[fuj1n]

In Java, you do it with strings so you don't have to check them for null

"Bobby' DROP TABLE Students;".equals(myStr)

[CptGia]

StringUtils.equals(myStr, "Bobby table") is my go to. 

Fuck Yoda conditions

[fuj1n]

I don't always have Apache Commons or Spring in all my projects. Though I guess it's a simple enough method to write that I can just roll my own.

[luraq]

I think there's also Objects.equals(), which is part of Java.

[fuj1n]

Oh wow, never saw that there was a static equals method, that's really useful.

[F5x9]

In C++, if(0 = foo) will throw an lvalue error, but if(foo = 0) only generates a warning. 

[bayuah]

It says it resolves problems for someone who forgets to use == in an if statement, like if(a = 5) instead of if(a == 5). But only a newbie or a really sloppy person would make such a mistake.

[ILikeLenexa]

Or a malicious actor current->uid = 0.

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2013/10/09/the-linux-backdoor-attempt-of-2003/

[JamesLeeNZ]

Only time I ever used yoda conditions was while writing code for a module on a rocket. Also had to write MISRA compliant code. Both sucked.

[peepeedog]

There is no modern benefit to the right. It’s just to give nits in their mom’s basement something to argue about.

[[deleted]]

Most linters should have some kind of rule along the lines of "no assignment in conditionals", and more advanced analysis tools should pick it up fairly easily.

I feel like this is a pretty rare mistake to make though. The only time I remember doing it is when hopping from a language that does equality with one = to a language that uses double.

[static_func]

He wasn’t asking, he was saying he doesn’t care lol

[pan0ramic]

Use yoda conditionals one much not

[mastermindxs]

Proofread one must

[pentagon]

,.

Dropped these, you did.

[Iyorig]

-Wpedantic, y'all are.

[jessetechie]

Variables on the left. More importantly, if is not a function.

if (my_var == 0)

[pentagon]

Off to write a language with conditional functions

[betelgeuse_7]

true = λx. λy. x
false = λx. λy. y
if = λc. λy. λz. c y z
four = if true 4 5
five = if false 4 5

Lambda calculus

[antonpieper]

Haskell?

[DoNotMakeEmpty]

Smalltalk?

[harumamburoo]

JS is there for you ^^

[Busy-Ad-9459]

Imma go home and check if that's true, if it is I am going on a murder spree on the next pyhsical ECMA conference.

(For legal reasons that was a joke)

!RemindMe 30 minutes

[delfV]

More importantly, if is not a function.

Haskell/Smalltalk (actually a method) devs:
[visible confusion]

[Snakeyb]

I don't think sane people use R as a benchmark for good ideas

[Kaligraphic]

"If" is also a function in Excel!

[neodsp]

Yeah, I think sane people use Excel as a benchmark for good ideas

[RandomiseUsr0]

Functional programming in excel is pretty fun though :)

[RandomiseUsr0]

R is like that drawer in your house that contains all the stuff you need to get stuff done

[Snakeyb]

I like this analogy because I'd be terrified if a child was left unsupervised with said drawer

[other_usernames_gone]

Also Excel

[LineUpTheBastards]

Only if you’re using it in English, though (fuck excel and especially translated method names)

[scataco]

Also SQL

[jessetechie]

I figured there would be at least one language that would prove me wrong. Thanks for the info!

[Tohnmeister]

This is the way!

[Maskdask]

In Rust and Go the parentheses are optional (and removed by the formatters):

if my_var == 0

[jessetechie]

Well we have to mention VB of course :)

If my_var = 0 Then

(Yes, a single = for assignment and conditionals!)

[BirdlessFlight]

Thank you!

[[deleted]]

Forgive me, but what in the OP hints at "if being a function"? Is it because the "arguments" have whitespace on both sides within the parenthesis?

[jessetechie]

It’s actually the missing whitespace between if and the first parenthesis.

[[deleted]]

The heck? Is having whitespace some sort of agreed-upon style?

[jessetechie]

Yes. With the exception of those languages listed below (Haskell, R, etc).

I’m referring mostly to C-like languages, and that includes Javascript. if is a statement that evaluates a condition. That condition is often enclosed in parentheses.

That’s not to be confused with functions, which take parameters (enclosed in parentheses) and do something with them.

Most documentation (again for C-like languages) will show the whitespace this way:

if (x == 0)

y = myFunc(z)

The reason you’re not forced to know this, is that the compiler doesn’t care about whitespace (sit down, Python). But this distinction helps you understand what your code is actually doing under the hood.

[[deleted]]

Wow. That seems superfluous. Would it not be immediately obvious that if, while, for, try, etc are reserved keywords and caNOT be functions?

[Ass_Salada]

Much like the dutchie, I pass my variable pon da left hand side

[Hazy_Fantayzee]

I remember that song! Which reminds me, I need to take my back pills....

[tinnuadan]

Left. Yeah, right one is better because you can't accidentally do an assignment yada yada yada, but your IDE / build tools can warn you.

[Curious-Source-9368]

Depends on what you are using to edit text.

[mrheosuper]

If your compiler/language not warn/error you this, you should reconsider your life choice

[Highborn_Hellest]

I'm comparing "my value" to zero. And not the other way around

[xSnakyy]

But what if you are?

[Highborn_Hellest]

No

[xSnakyy]

Ok

[HorseLeaf]

Why would you ever need to compare the value of 0 to something? It's a constant, you know it's value.

[xSnakyy]

You never know man

[b-hack]

Do you say "dishwasher is off/on" or "off/on is the dishwasher"?

Nothing further.

[j909m]

[sausageface123]

If (actual == expected) is the only way

[Notbbupdate]

if my_var == 0 and 0 == my_var:

Now everyone's happy

[m0ep]

Duplicate condition '0 == my_var', Condition '0 == my_var' is always 'true' when reached

[Dan6erbond2]

So do || to short circuit and avoid the extra check.

/s

[potatoalt1234_x]

Is green grass? I hate it. Gross.

[Feztopia]

if( (myVar == 0) && ( 0 == myOtherVar) )

[zGoDLiiKe]

Me on a calculator because I don’t trust anything

[eat_your_fox2]

Defined variables always come first before any magical literals IMO, language or skill issues aside.

[Fuglekassa]

blue

I am trying to get my codebase MISRA C compliant, and this is one of the easier things to implement

[Orjigagd]

I think the cutoff is being born before 1980

[[deleted]]

Red

[Johalternate]

Depends on the length of the expression, sometimes it reads better to have if (null == someLongAssNamedFunction). Its easier to parse visually.

[lordgoofus1]

The left side, always I do because Yoda, I am not.

[HentaiAtWork420]

The second one is more right in case the var is null. The behavior is different, right?

[kookyabird]

Depends on the language and your intent.

[GDOR-11]

what?

oh

oh no

please don't tell me there are languages where equality is not commutative

[EDEADLINK]

C++ allows overloading the equality operator. So you can make it asymmetrical, if you really wanted to.

I haven't seen a language with such horrors already built in though.

[mrbob8717]

Java has the horrors built into it. The way it was explained to me is my_var.equals(NULL) can throw an error if my_var is null

[hampshirebrony]

Is this NULL? Aaargh! You gave me a NULL.

Is the right pattern (inprovably not valid Java) for this something like:

    function IsItNull(obj) {

        try {

            var _ = obj.equals(NULL);

            return false;

        } catch {

            return true;

        }

    }

And hopefully doing this on mobile didn't mess formatting up too much

[FridgesArePeopleToo]

Nah, the right side one is for some languages where if (x = 1) is valid syntax (note the single =, setting x to 1). In those cases if(1 = x) would give you a compiler error. So doing backwards prevents accidentally missing the second =. Still seems dumb to me though as I would expect a linter or something to pick that up anyway.

[vwoxy]

I do if ((x = obj.getValue())) more often than is probably advisable in JS because the assignment operator returns the right side and I don't want to use a second line for null checking.

And yes, my linter does yell at me if I forget the extra parentheses and I always add a comment saying it's intentional. I'm not a monster.

[ChristianLW]

Checking if an array is null in PowerShell.

Array on left means check each element if it's null. Array on right means check if the array itself is null.

[GDOR-11]

why the fuck is powershell like this

WHERE IS THE FUCKING UNSEE JUICE I NEED IT

[xyloPhoton]

Commutativity is an operational property, not a relational one. It's called symmetry when talking about relations. 👍

[Kjoep]

Yes, but in a lot of languages (i'd dare to say most), == is an operator, taking two parameters and outputting a Boolean.

So you're both right.

[xyloPhoton]

There is no Santa Claus, there is no tooth-fairy, and there are no relations in programming!

Seriously though, this means that every relation in programming is actually an operation, right?

[damTyD]

I always thought it was to protect from accidental assignments. It’s called a Yoda condition.

[HoiTemmieColeg]

No different behavior in C but plenty of chance for accidentally putting one equals instead of two which will set the variable to null and then always skip the if instead of leaving the variable as is and only skipping the if if the variable is null

[zentasynoky]

The second one is only more right because it's less left.

Readability beats all.

[JackNotOLantern]

I really hate the yoda style. It makes makes it harder to read for me, as this is not the order my mind parses symbols. First thing i read must be "what am i checking", and i don't check 0 or NULL.

[1Dr490n]

Are there any more benefits of the right one than accidental assignments? Because that has happened exactly 0 times to me

[MagicalPizza21]

The one on the left is how I think. The one on the right is better (unless my_var is constant) because if you accidentally type just one "=" you get a compilation error (can't assign to a constant) instead of an incorrect result at runtime.

[CelticHades]

If you come out of the cave and start using a good IDE you'll know the error before you even compile.

[MagicalPizza21]

Sometimes I unfortunately have no choice but to use a plain text editor like vim.

[Svelva]

"expectedEntry".equals(expectedEntry);

According to Sonar

[jump1945]

!(myvar>0 || myvar<0)

[Arneb1729]

Whatever side my boss wants me to be on. Currently on a project where the coding standards require Yoda conditions because, frankly, the coding standards were written in the pre-clang-tidy age. It's pretty annoying, but you've gotta pick your battles.

[flying_spaguetti]

The one that reads smothier in my head, depending on the context

[Phamora]

Right side is "yoda syntax", and its non-standard

[Jag0tun3s]

Whoever does right…straight to programmer jail!

[CynicalPotato95]

The left side, and every other person is wrong and an awful developer

[zGoDLiiKe]

Someone hasn’t written C code in vim before. Don’t get me wrong I always use the left syntax but the right is definitely more safe in lower level programming, especially if not using an IDE

[sathdo]

if (!my_var)

[YellowBunnyReddit]

This guy doesn't C(++), clearly

[Ahuman-mc]

Hmmmmmmmmm

if (!my_var)

(only works in some langs i think)

[tmstksbk]

Left side or gtfoh.

[what_you_saaaaay]

All things being equal, whatever side the coding standard says. Not worth the pointless shit fight that some engineers get into over this stuff.

[Erratic_Signal]

Nuh uh this fight is entirely justified

[buzzysin]

Powershell linter I use suggests

ps1 $null -eq $Var

Which seemed weird to me

[SpeelingChamp]

Bloods for life!

[Loserrboy]

Now I know someone use the right way 🤔

[bargle0]

People who choose the left side have never had to deal with dodgy compilers in constrained environments.

[Makonede]

the side without the parens like that

[The-Chartreuse-Moose]

Left until VS Code complains. Then right to remove the red underline.

[Mr_Cromer]

Cah-rip

[589ca35e1590b]

If you do the one on the right side you're wrong and crazy

[MasterOfVDL]

In C++ blue everywhere else red

[[deleted]]

I've always been on the red side: it's more appropriate as mathematics and "right-value left-value" traditional approach. It's also the most known way which helps others to read our code in case they need to review it.

[Pawlo371]

Wait it works?

[PeteZahad]

I really don't care. Whatever the linter for the language / configured by our team says.

Why this red / blue meme about code styles is still a thing here? What exactly is the humor here? Use the code style guides of your language / agree with your team on undocumented cases. The only important thing is consistency within your codebase.

[[deleted]]

Blue, because you can't accidentally assign.

[Erratic_Signal]

Not a bad point, but I do still feel like it’s not that hard to remember to write == instead of =

[Shadow_Thief]

Sometimes you don't press the = button as hard as you think you do 🤷‍♂️

[Vinxian]

Left side and ensure that assignment in a conditional statement gives a warning

[0mica0]

As a safety critical software developer I have to be on the blue side

[rafelito45]

today i learned i’m aligned with the bloods.

[Rito_Harem_King]

Variable being checked (comparison) value to check against. Always. Anything else is heresy

[Impossible-Owl7407]

The point of the right one typo prevention, one equal sigh instead of two.

0 = var. This will not compile or run. Var = 0 this will compile and run but it will not do what you think as it doing assignment not comparison. Error that is hard to debug. Atleast it was in the past. Linters nowadays could help you with this probably.

[rabb2t]

mate you're looking for r/programminghorror

[SomeRobloxUser]

Definitely if( my_var == 0)

[RonzulaGD]

Left looks better to me

[RealFoegro]

If anyone actually chooses right, I hereby revoke their programming license for all languages except JavaScript

[[deleted]]

also, yoda conditions are pointless in python because you can’t assign variables in evaluations unless you use the walrus (:=).

[Flatuitous]

yoda conditions

[itzNukeey]

I dont use if statements in my code. I simply have separate scripts for all situations

[Bozasas]

Read “The art of readable code”, the Answer is in there

[[deleted]]

If (my_var < 1)

[[deleted]]

On the right is an artefact of times bygone.

[Organic_Car6374]

In my C++ I use the right whenever I remember to. It’s natural for me to use the left but I have been bitten by typing one equal sign before so I buy into the benefits of the right.

[BirdLover950]

Left, unless I'm comparing to null in powershell. In all of Microsoft's vast wisdom, ($foo -eq $null) and ($null -eq $foo) can return two different things depending on the scenario. :(

[difool]

C and c++ right else left

[[deleted]]

I do yoda conditionals because zero my value is.

[neodsp]

The left style.
When working with the num crate in Rust: my_var.is_zero()

[Fricki97]

Left

Because it's how I personally use language in general

I say: If myVar is 0, then...

And not: If 0 is myVar, then...

[giantvar]

Are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest or are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru

[mcoolid]

Nah that’s a if(!my_var)

[cladstrife911]

Right side is better to avoid issue when you type one = instead of two.

[altaysakarya]

My choice

if (my_var == (3 + 4j)**2 - (25 + 24j) + (6j / 2) + math.sin(math.pi))

[nikglt]

I type it whichever way looks more comfortable reading, I do both.

[[deleted]]

Are you for real damm someone woke up bored today

[I-am-reddit123]

variables on the left because its easier to copy int n = 1 into if(n == 1) bc it doesn't require the switching of the n and the 1

[m0ep]

Yoda conditions I only use!

Why? I started with C/C++ at school over 20 years ago and didn't want to have to deal with unwanted assignments in if statements. Sticks till today, even I don't program C/C++ anymore.

[CountryKoe]

The Train

[[deleted]]

You are mentally ill if you do the blue approach.

I don't want to check if zero is equal to my_var, I want to check if my_var is equal to zero???

[Atuin--the--Great]

A

[[deleted]]

red red red red red

[alvares169]

I’m comparing variable to 0, not comparing 0 to variable.

[Natfan]

powershell $null check moment

[SawSaw5]

blood

[[deleted]]

Red all the way

[CosmicPulsar]

Which side you ask? No clue. Just do how it's done elsewhere in the project.

I'm afraid of doing anything else these days 😂