>I don't think an IF...ENDIF, unless it goes beyond a certain number of nesting levels, is ever too complex. In fact, I feel quite strongly the opposite. I even prefer IF...ENDIF to IIF(...).
>
>I know there is a school that truly believes that any "extra" line(s) is the equivalent of added complexity. I just think they are wrong.
>Probably it comes down to the idea that I don't write my code for VFP "experts" but rather for average-->lower-skilled VFP developers. The idea being that virtually anyone can then maintain my code.
>I acknowledge that VFP "experts" might criticize such code, but I see that as their problem, not mine.
>
>cheers

Well, the message you reply to was merely to point out that speed optimization is not the only reason for shortcut boolean evaluation - another reason was to avoid errors.

If you prefer nested IFs, that is no problem with me...

By the way, yet another reason for shortcut boolean evaluation might be to avoid side-effects of code:

if functionA() and functionB()
  ...
endif

If functionB() changes anything in the environment, then it may very well make a difference if SBE is used, or not.

Once again, the code is completely equivalent to nested IFs; but a seasoned programmer should know that SBE does exist: in the code above, there is no guarantee that functionB() will be invoked!