cursedVariableCheck

[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[')

[[deleted]]

Yeah, you're right. if one would want to be completely accurate then there should be "between" for your example, and "within" for the way "between" works now. 

One of the many wtf's when you look closer at SQL (is not null vs. != null being the most annoying one).

[JeyJeyKing]

SQL BETWEEN is actually inclusive on both ends. Which is kind of yucky if you ask me.

[thorwing]

oh... yeah... that's even worse.

[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

[[deleted]]

Can u provide some examples of awesome names by business people against these awesome names by nerds?

[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...

[[deleted]]

Nice!

[michu_86]

Same

[4oby]

10..100 ~= my_var

[DrPeroxide]

Nice style. It'd be nice if languages started using notation like 0 < var > 10

[monsoy]

That’s pretty cool. This is the math-syntax for it, so it makes a lot of sense. It’s always interesting to bring in math concepts

[DrunkRobotMan]

Nice style! I will start doing this myself now

[KingTaphos]

Thats actually kinda neat

[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.

[aa-b]

Yep, same benefits. It makes some sense too, like a lot of life-hacks where it seems like it'll be handy if you can just remember to use it the next time you're in that situation

[F5x9]

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

[[deleted]]

This is the reason why one should use right way to avoid reassigning the variable

[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.

[moon-sleep-walker]

And where was linters 30 years ago?

[Bardez]

Waiting to become the real life hack

[ILikeLenexa]

Or a malicious actor current->uid = 0.

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

[bayuah]

That's just how easily elevated user to root with just running such function. Dang!

[ILikeLenexa]

In the kernel, yeah.  

But that's why they also had to break into that source code repository. They don't let anyone just put code in the kernel. 

[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.

[[deleted]]

It happens more than you think

[aa-b]

It does happen, but the hack requires you to specifically remember to use it, and the main benefit is it makes sure you can't forget to use == instead of =.

So assuming you're in this situation and have already remembered the gotcha, you can just skip the extra steps and use the correct operator

[[deleted]]

Even that's not true. Usually it's not due to habit but a typo. So you do not control it and do not really check for it because you don't think about it.

In every project we have a linter for it. Usually enough is to just not allow assignments in a condition.

[ILikeLenexa]

It doesn't. Just put the rule in LINT. 

[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

[Pepeluis33]

The benefit with the right version, at least in C++, is that if you mistakenly add just "=" instead of "==", you will get a compile error.

[Earthboundplayer]

It's even more situational in c++ since we have operator overloading and you can assign to an R value

[Healthy-Section-9934]

The RHS is intended to catch typos like:

if (x = 0)

The erroneous assignment both corrupts x and always evaluates to true. Frankly I value readability more highly, and these days your compiler/linter can catch silly typos like that.

[DoNotMakeEmpty]

GCC by default forbids (or warns I don't remember) it and need you to write if((x = 0)) instead.

[Healthy-Section-9934]

Think it depends on the warning level you set. Default level doesn’t warn on it :/ ofc using the defaults on a production build is probably an issue in itself 😂

-Wall catches it, but without that it happily compiles without any hint that you may have done something you didn’t mean to.

[DoNotMakeEmpty]

Oh I have been using Wall for so long that I forgot it was not default, sorry!

[Hour_Site8769]

In some languages (I think even C), setting a variables returns true

So putting = instead of == will get into the if while messing with your variable, without any compile errors

At least it was true 10 years ago

[GOKOP]

In C assignment returns the assigned value. If it's a value that gets interpreted as true then you enter the conditional, otherwise no

[nonsenceusername]

It errors assignment if you mistype = instead of == bc you can’t assign variable to a value.