[kazagistar]

Is using the if statement as a ternary that much worse?

    let x = if a { b } else { c };

Sure, it costs a few characters, but I appreciate the consistency and clarity.

[vertex-four]

Much agreed - I quite regularly write code like that, and it's very clear on reading the first thing after the `=` that you're doing something conditional. You can also embed complex expressions in there without confusion. The ternary syntax requires you to read the entire statement before you even know what kinds of expressions it contains, then backtrack to figure it out.

[FreeFull]

I would strictly call that an "if expression" rather than an "if statement". It is equivalent to ?:, even though it is also a bit more verbose.

[ww520]

Verbose.

[vertex-four]

The thing is, Rust's Option type means the primary use of the ternary in other languages - `foo ? foo : somedefault` - is entirely unnecessary in Rust. Other uses of it tend to benefit significantly from being more obvious about what's happening.

I think a ternary operator would be the first construct in Rust that prevents reading a statement from left to right.