Question

Is it true that in most cases, in Ruby, it is best to use &&, || instead of and, or, unless it is some special situations.

I think one of Ruby’s design principles is to have least surprises as possible, so using and, or or actually have some surprises… such as and not having a higher precedence than or, while && has a higher precedence than ||.

So I think in most cases, use &&, ||. In know in some special situations, it may require using and, or, but I think if those are intermixed with &&, ||, sooner or later it may create bugs when your coworkers who started in Ruby not so long ago need to edit your code.

Answer 1

Yes. Relying on and and or for boolean logic is a good way to introduce subtle bugs into your application.

They do have a place, though. They are a safe and readable option when used as control flow operators.

redirect_to root_url and return

I basically felt the way you did until I read this excellent blog post.