Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in the wrong place.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Consider the future maintainer's mental health and the likelihood of misplaced parentheses.
- In plain terms
- Write code that is easy for others to maintain.
- What can you take from it?
- Prioritize readability and simplicity for future developers.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How can you balance readability with efficiency?
- What conventions help avoid parenthesis errors?
Another view
Sometimes readability conflicts with performance.
More from Larry Wall
Does the same as the system call of that name. If you don't know what it does, don't worry about it.
Permalink to quote #266 Help save the world!
Permalink to quote #268 Be consistent.
Permalink to quote #265
Related quotes
There are probably better ways to do that, but it would make the parser more complex. I do, occasionally, struggle feebly against complexity... :-)
Larry WallLarry Wall quote #23 Though I'll admit readability suffers slightly...
Larry WallLarry Wall quote #25 Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
Linus TorvaldsLinus Torvalds quote #55