[dathinab]

Nesting them can lead to very not-so-easy to understand logical expressions, furthermore if the parts between ?: is long enough it can also noticeable reduce readability.

Instead of `<cond> ? <left> : <right>` I prefer `if <cond> { <left> } else { <right> }` the additional brackets noticeable improve readability and you can extend it to support `if <cond> { <a> } else if <cond2> { <b> } else { <c>` instead of `<cond> ? <a> : <cond2> ? <b> : <c>`. (Oh and that last example might be wrong needing brackets depending on operator precedence...)

Through if you don't nest it it doesn't matter (oh and because it's a expression evaluation `else` is not optional but required as you need a value the expression resolves to).

[alfnoodles]

Ah. The biggest difference between ?/: and if/else is that ?/: is an expression (returns a value) and if/else are statements (a step/command/declaration/etc). You can build statements on top of CEL (lots do), but the core Common Expression Language (CEL) doesn't actually have them.

Note that python uses if/else for the ternary expression form as well: `a = b if c else d`

Though personally, I like to have the condition in the front, instead of in the middle.

[st1ck]

if/else doesn't have to be a statement:

    max = if a < b then b else a

You may also like `jq` syntax with `elif`s:

    if cond1 then res1 elif cond2 then res2 ... else res end