Which code you find easier to read

Djaballah Djedid

Oct '23 in ❤️ Questions & Discussion

Yesterday at work, I found myself in a situation where I had to write a part of the code in two different ways

Option 1

```

const items = ['item1', 'item3']

const searchedItem = 'item';

const searchedItemExist = items.some((item) => searchItem === item);

if (!searchedItemExist) {

// do some processing

}

```

Option 2

```

const items = ['item1', 'item3']

const searchedItem = 'item';

const isSearchItemNew = !items.some((item) => searchItem === item);

if (searchedItemExist) {

// do some processing

}

```

and since I'm writing code for my colleagues to read && review, I decided to ask them which one they prefer,

and everyone chooses the first option,

for me when the If statement is not for early returns, I generally prefer the condition to be a positive condition (a condition without the not `!` operator), that's why my preference in this case was option 2, but the problem with this option is the `!` before doing the search of the item (!items.some((item) => searchItem === item)) which can be easier to miss.

I want to share this with you and I would love to know what your opinions are on this

3 comments