The Sophistication Ladder of Conditional Statements

Description

This is a four-panel, vertical meme format, similar to the 'Expanding Brain' or 'Tuxedo Winnie the Pooh' memes, which ranks different ways of writing an 'else if' conditional statement. The first two panels feature a crudely drawn, tense-looking Winnie the Pooh, representing lower sophistication. Next to these are the words 'Elsif' and 'elif' respectively. The third panel shows a standard, calm-looking Winnie the Pooh next to the more common 'else if'. The final panel breaks the pattern entirely, displaying a simple, light-blue cartoon character with a mustache clenching its fist in front of a Union Jack flag. Next to this is the word 'otherwise'. The humor is derived from the escalation of programming language syntax from common variants ('elif' in Python, 'elsif' in Ruby) to the standard C-family 'else if', and finally to the absurdly formal and British-themed 'otherwise', which is not a standard keyword in most languages but perfectly captures a sense of over-the-top, quirky formality

Common Tags

LanguageComparison LanguageQuirks Syntax DeveloperHumor LanguageWars CodingHumor RelatableHumor

Comments

Anonymous ★ Top Pick Some developers use 'elif' for conciseness. Others prefer 'else if' for clarity. I, however, use 'otherwise', and my IDE is configured to only compile after it has queued up a formal complaint to the compiler's manager

Anonymous ★ Top Pick

Some developers use 'elif' for conciseness. Others prefer 'else if' for clarity. I, however, use 'otherwise', and my IDE is configured to only compile after it has queued up a formal complaint to the compiler's manager
Anonymous

The real portability layer isn’t POSIX - it’s a regex that translates every codebase’s preferred spelling of ‘else-if’ before the diff reviewer has an aneurysm
Anonymous

After 20 years of writing conditionals, you realize the real branching nightmare isn't elsif vs elif - it's explaining to the junior why your 'elegant' pattern matching solution with guards and monadic transformations takes 3x longer to debug than a simple switch statement
Anonymous

After 20 years in the industry, you realize the real sophistication isn't in choosing 'otherwise' over 'elsif' - it's in avoiding nested conditionals altogether by refactoring into a strategy pattern, only to have a junior dev rewrite it back to if-else chains because 'it's more readable.'
Anonymous

If the team is debating elif vs else if, the senior fix is a dispatch table or pattern matching - otherwise you’ve just built a 200‑line ladder
Anonymous

Polyglot repos prove the hardest cross-platform issue isn’t containers - it’s remembering whether the branch keyword is elif (Python), elseif (PHP), elsif (Ruby/Perl), else if (C/JS), or, if you’re in Spark, the aristocratic ‘otherwise’
Anonymous

15+ YoE truth: They all desugar to jumps, but 'otherwise' pairs best with a spot of tea during the perf regression
@Sp1cyP3pp3r 2y

if !
@sersocks 2y

haskell moment
@EricKotato 2y

unless
@denis_klyuev 2y

is there a new lang called pringles?
@misesOnWheels 2y

elif is stupid. but ending an if block with fi is beyond moronic
1. @callofvoid0 2y
  
  bash :
2. @CcxCZ 2y
  
  Well, Bourne really liked Algol. But in Algol that stuff actually kinda works and is consistent.
@sylfn 2y

please use English in this chat
@callofvoid0 2y

ifn't
1. @purplesyringa 2y
  
  more like unless
  
  @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Duded you just reversed the whole lookup
  
  @callofvoid0 2y
  
  if(){} or(){}
2. @callofvoid0 2y
  
  this thing got more attention than I expected let's inplement it somewhere
@ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y

💀💀😂😂😂
@byrustya 2y

nested when 🤬
@rangerhood 2y

Elseways 🤴
@callofvoid0 2y

nextguess
@callofvoid0 2y

oddchance
@ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y

Apparently
@viktorrozenko 2y

Perchance 🇬🇧
@Ra_zor 2y

But otherwise=else🤔
1. @ZgGPuo8dZef58K6hxxGVj3Z2 2y
  
  Doesn’t need to be
  
  @Ra_zor 2y
  
  Semantically it is tho. And in no way otherwise=else if. if a==1 ... otherwise a==2 ... just doesn't work.
@dovbenn 2y

elfish
@azizhakberdiev 2y

we also need block in any case
@man13hma 2y

But still
@callofvoid0 2y

in another case
@prirai 2y

ow

Use J and K for navigation

The Sophistication Ladder of Conditional Statements

Description

Categories

Common Tags

Comments

More like this

Rust vs HTML5 Memory Safety Comparison Table

Zig Declines to Collect Bun's Garbage

Calvin's Dad Explains: Every Language Is Either Lisp or C