Some time in the past, I wrote a line of code.

It looked like this:


if pu : pu = pu.url.to_s != '' ? pu : nil end


There is sat, working fine, for a long time.  Today, I was editing the 
code, doing a variation on it for a new site.

I came to that line.

I looked at it.

I called it stupid.

Sure, it's concise, but what did I gain by making it so concise over 
making it so that it was clearly readable a year and a half later?

Not much.


Sometimes clever is good, when there is a reason for it.  However, that 
time, clever was just plain stupid.


Kirk Haines