How to fry your co-developers brain; and then make it better

Here is a little example of code I’ve been faced with (not written by me), that struck me. Although the syntax is correct (it is javascript), it took me a little while to actually understand what is going on.

Here is the code:

someObject: function(data) {
	  return data.json ? data.json.stateObject ? data.json.stateObject : {} : {};
},

And here is how I refactored it.

   someObject: function(data) {                  
		  if (data.json) {
				if (data.json.stateObject) {
					return data.json.stateObject;
				}
		  }
		  return {};                             
   }

So I mentioned brianpower in a while ago. Michael Feathers though calls such a thing “forming a mental model“. Which is exactly what I meant. You also hear this in the scene of Usability; the less your mental model matches with the actual object you use (expectations), the less likely you’ll probably understand it, let alone *use it*.

So tell me, which one is easier to understand? And how much impact do you think this has?

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