[swift-evolution] ternary operator ?: suggestion

[Paul Ossenbruggen]

> On Dec 12, 2015, at 12:37 PM, Andrey Tarantsov via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> 1. I would really hate to explain to someone when if needs a then and when it doesn't. That's the sort of inconsistency that shouldn't be added lightly.

agreed definitely want to be careful with that. I think with braces meaning statements that differentiation can be made clear. I would certainly start with statements when describing, just as you usually don’t talk about the ternary operator until later. 

> 3. If we can somehow solve all of this, I think I'll be +1 for replacing (A ? B : C) with some sort of (if A then B else C).

Yes that would be great.

> 
> 4. Generally, I wonder how hard would it be for all statements to be usable as expressions? Why didn't Swift go that way from the start?

The biggest problem statement is you don’t need to exhaustively specify every outcome:

if cond {
	print(“hello”)
}

whereas in an expression you have to specify what happens in the else.

let say = if cond then “hello” else “goodbye"

unless you go seriously off the deep end:

let say = if cond then “hello” 

 “say" then becomes an optional, *shudder*


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