short-circuit control forms

["James A. Krzyzanowski" <James_A_Krzyzanowski@raytheon.com>]

Looking for expert opinions...

We have a company standard which states:
"standard => Use short-circuit control forms to specify the order of
             conditions when the failure of one condition means that
             the other condition will raise an exception.
 guideline => Avoid short-circuit control forms otherwise."

Our software engineers believe that using short-circuit control forms
will make our software more efficient (speed-wise).  So, they have been
replacing every "and" with "and then" and every "or" with "or else".

We use Rational Apex and a Rational Representative sent correspondence
basically saying that their compiler will NOT optimize plain "and" and
"or" to behave as though the best "and then" and "or else" order has
been specified.

The reason for our standard on this topic is because we expected the
compiler to be smarter than the software engineer when it comes to
specifying an order of conditions.  This is also consistent with
Ada 95 Quality and Style: Guidelines for Professional Programmers.

If using "and then" and "or else" will make our software quicker, and
then the compiler doesn't optimize any better anyway, does anybody have
a good reason why we should NOT use short-circuit control forms?

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         James A. Krzyzanowski - Staff Software Engineer - AFATDS       %c%
     Raytheon Systems Company * Fort Wayne, IN 46808 * (219) 429-6446   cus
                 mailto:James_A_Krzyzanowski@raytheon.com               %s%
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