Looks a lot like more syntax sugar to me, to hide boilerplate code. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can obfuscate the actual meaning of the code for the sake of brevity. What does A ??= B do at a glance, for example?
It’s not exclusive to C# or “corporate” languages either. Rust has a fuckton of syntax sugar that makes it difficult to read.
And that improves readability, how? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the Elvis operator, but chaining multiple null coalescing assignments into a one-line expression is a chore to decipher.
Because null checks are an extremely common operation to have to do, and this let’s your code read as just the business logic without these constant null checks breaking things up by multiple lines.
It’s only not readable to you because you’re not used to them. That’s the case for literally every bit of new programming syntax that comes along.
(Old programmer here, I just shout at differently shaped clouds than this one.)
Edit: I am not sure if the respondents to this comment think I have a horse in this race. I said I don’t and that I shout at different clouds. I am just here answering a question.
Another old programmer here, and I don’t see the issue. C# gets better with every release and the null coalescing assignment operator is very handy. It also exists in JavaScript.
What’s wrong with this? I don’t get it. Perfectly understandable code to me. Can someone explain?
Looks a lot like more syntax sugar to me, to hide boilerplate code. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can obfuscate the actual meaning of the code for the sake of brevity. What does
A ??= Bdo at a glance, for example?It’s not exclusive to C# or “corporate” languages either. Rust has a fuckton of syntax sugar that makes it difficult to read.
A ??= BIs just
If (A == null) { A = B; }And that improves readability, how? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the Elvis operator, but chaining multiple null coalescing assignments into a one-line expression is a chore to decipher.
By the way, you forgot to return the result.
Because null checks are an extremely common operation to have to do, and this let’s your code read as just the business logic without these constant null checks breaking things up by multiple lines.
It’s only not readable to you because you’re not used to them. That’s the case for literally every bit of new programming syntax that comes along.
What result? The result is A being assigned a value. That’s the result.
Old programmers shouting at clouds.
(Old programmer here, I just shout at differently shaped clouds than this one.)
Edit: I am not sure if the respondents to this comment think I have a horse in this race. I said I don’t and that I shout at different clouds. I am just here answering a question.
Another old programmer here, and I don’t see the issue. C# gets better with every release and the null coalescing assignment operator is very handy. It also exists in JavaScript.
Ruby has it as well:
a ||= b # which means a = a || b # wich is the same as a = b if !a # which rubyists like to write as a = b unless a # or as ternary a = a ? a : bThat’s way too many ways of doing the same thing, yuck.
But you’re saying the idiomatic way is to use
unless, rather than the actual operator for this?I feel like it boils down to understanding that operator. I’m a TypeScript developer by trade so I had no issue understanding this. 🤷♂️