>Many years ago I read some articles in Byte mag or DDJ or some such, about the tricks C/C++ optimizing compilers employ. Coupling that with the knowledge that not all languages short-circuit the same way (or at all) I made the decision that I would never rely on it regardless of language. From a maintenance POV I consider code that uses it fragile and a land mine for the unwary or unfamiliar. Relying on that behaviour is not inherently self-documenting in the way that (ideally) good code should be.

In such unreliable languages, where the compiler may make its own decisions, I'd code very conservatively and avoid any features I'm not sure of.

In VFP, I run only the risk of it being broken in the next version... what the hell, you live only once (yes, YLOO and not YOLO, because the latter is completely wrong - there are dozens of other things you also do once).