 All right, so in a talk yesterday that will remain nameless someone dissed unless people are always dissing unless So I'm here to to stand up for poor unless Wow one person in the audience So I think there are basically two kinds of people who are unless had haters there are people who think it's just a useless duplication of if not and then there are other people who Find it a painful reminder of Ruby's connection to Pearl For the second group therapy for the first group you're wrong So languages especially English but languages in general don't like duplication You really have to work hard to find two things that mean exactly the same thing For example, if you look for a word that means someone by themselves you get all of these Which range from something that's sort of a statement of fact to something that's kind of pathetic to something that's probably an action hero But they're all different slightly subtle semantic meanings and The true the same thing holds true for unless versus if not If you say if it's nice we go to the park versus unless it's nice We'll go to the movies We're saying in the first statement is kind of neutral. It's nice. We're going to the park the second statement We're sort of implying that it's not going to be nice. There's a slight negative connotation to or Not so much a connotation but sort of an inference that it's not going to be nice It might be but it probably isn't going to be same with if it rains will go to the movies unless it rains We'll go to the park same kind of thing Another complaint I commonly hear is that you can't say unless not that's somehow bad Unless is okay, but never use unless not. Well, if it's not raining, we'll go to the park Unless it's not raining. We'll go to the movies. That's a perfectly valid sentence. Somebody might say it You know again says something about What we think the weather will be like But sometimes it's awkward too If it's not nice We'll go to the movies sounds okay. Unless it's not nice. We'll go to the park sounds a little awkward or it should be the movies it's if the If you're negating a positive thing unless gets a little awkward If you're negating a negative thing it kind of actually works, but the point is How does it read does it make your code more understandable if you use unless You're conveying information. There were several talks yesterday about You know making it easier to intuit making code readable for people Does it make it easier to read if you use unless then use it? Does it make it confusing? No simple