Ruby's 'and'/'or' Operators Are Flow Control Tools, Not Logical Ones

A technical deep-dive published on DEV Community argues that Ruby's 'and' and 'or' operators are fundamentally flow control operators, not mere alternatives to '&&' and '||'. Unlike '&&' and '||', which carry operator precedence, 'and' and 'or' have no precedence between them and are evaluated left to right, reflecting their role in directing program flow. The author contends that longstanding Ruby guides, including 'Ruby Good Idiom', have misrepresented and misused these operators, contributing to their limited adoption. Correct usage, the article explains, involves placing them at the end of a line followed by a line break, rather than nesting them within a single expression. The piece also cautions against using 'and'/'or' for exception handling, recommending guard clauses instead for scenarios that fall outside normal flow control.