Possible Duplicate:Is the ternary operator evil? Does using shorthand if else statments hurt readability?Compare:string name = street != null ? street.Owner : Not known;With:string name;if(street != null){    name =  street.Owner;}else{    name = Not known;}I have become familiar enough with the shorthand that its just as readable for short statements as the long version. Is that true for most developers or should I favor the more verbose version
IF ELSE shorthand. Does it hurt readability
c#;code formatting
What you are referring to is a ternary operator. In my opinion it can increase readability for simplistic conditional checks like the one in your question. It's short and provides a clear and obvious pair of return values. Nesting them hurts readability. While not quite a duplicate question the hurts is clearly demonstrated in THIS question. Code from that question:int median(int a, int b, int c) {    return (a<b) ? (b<c) ? b : (a<c) ? c : a : (a<c) ? a : (b<c) ? c : b;}