[crtc]

This is by design: https://go.dev/doc/faq#Does_Go_have_a_ternary_form

Ken Thompson added ?: to B / C and then he took it from us in Go due to the wisdom he gathered in between.

[orangecat]

The if-else form, although longer, is unquestionably clearer.

I disagree:

- The variable name is repeated three times, increasing visual clutter and the chance of typos.

- The variable can't declared immutable. In Java/JS/Dart/etc it's nice to know that after "const x = foo ? bar : baz", x won't change.

And you don't even have to add a new operator, Rust and Kotlin get these benefits with an expression form of if/else.

[RodgerTheGreat]

> A language needs only one conditional control flow construct.

And yet, Go has a switch statement.

[MrDOS]

Not only that, but despite all of the other syntactic sugar Go is lacking (usually sorely, such as a “try” error handler), the switch statement is really just an “if” statement in disguise.

    var someVar, anotherVar string
    // ...
    switch {
    case someVar == "whatever":
        fmt.Println("Tell me how, exactly,")
    case anotherVar == "nope":
        fmt.Println("this compiles to a jump table?")
    default:
        fmt.Println("Spoiler: it doesn't.")
    }

[acuozzo]

> the switch statement is really just an “if” statement in disguise

If the switch is over a fixed set of strings, then can't the backend generate a perfect hash function ala gperf and then proceed to use the computed hash value to implement a jump table?

Also, FWIW, the only compiler backends I've ever seen blindly emit a jump table all died in the '80s. Jump tables aren't always the fastest choice: https://www.cipht.net/2017/10/03/are-jump-tables-always-fast...

[morelisp]

Go currently uses a binary search for integer switches (and I believe serial comparisons otherwise). Jump tables are in development and likely to appear around 1.19 or 1.20. As you say, there's a lot of edge cases to consider when figuring out whether a table or comparisons are the better choice.

https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/go/+/357330/

[MrDOS]

> can't the backend (...) implement a jump table?

Note that my example “switches” over two independent variables. Even if the Go compiler did generate a table, for this example it would really be generating two tables: and then we're back to the “how is this better than an `if`?” question.

[int_19h]

And loops!