Comments on: Calling The Kettle Black http://www.wolerized.com/opinion/calling-kettle-black X-pect the Un-X-pected - Remi's spot on the web Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:45:13 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Daniel Berstein http://www.wolerized.com/opinion/calling-kettle-black#comment-4 Daniel Berstein Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:13:47 +0000 #comment-4 The *reason* is quite simple: to avoid hard to catch bugs. Example: <code> // Bug hard to catch (no syntax error) if ($name = 'daniel') { } // First run and you get a syntax error if ('daniel' = $name) { } </code> This is the source of the practice of placing constants on the left side of your comparisons. Some of your examples don't take advantage of the described behaviour, but the idea is that one gets used to have *always* non-variables on the left. Consistency is a virtue. The *reason* is quite simple: to avoid hard to catch bugs.

Example:

// Bug hard to catch (no syntax error)
if ($name = 'daniel') { }
// First run and you get a syntax error
if ('daniel' = $name) { }

This is the source of the practice of placing constants on the left side of your comparisons. Some of your examples don’t take advantage of the described behaviour, but the idea is that one gets used to have *always* non-variables on the left. Consistency is a virtue.

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