Is it better to use NOT or when comparing values

Question

Is it better to use NOT or to use  lt   when comparing values in VBScript  is this    If NOT value1   value2 Then   or this    If value1  lt  gt  value2 Then   better   EDIT  Here is my counterargument   When looking to logically negate a Boolean value you would use the NOT operator  so this is correct     If NOT boolValue1 Then   and when a comparison is made in the case of the first example a Boolean value is returned  either the values are equal True  or they are not False  So using the NOT operator would be appropriate  because you are logically negating a Boolean value    For readability placing the comparison in parenthesis would probably help

User · Accepted Answer

The latter   lt  gt    because the meaning of the former isn t clear unless you have a perfect understanding of the order of operations as it applies to the Not and   operators  a subtlety which is easy to miss

User · Answer

Agreed  code readability is very important for others  but more importantly yourself  Imagine how difficult it would be to understand the first example in comparison to the second   If code takes more than a few seconds to read  understand   perhaps there is a better way to write it  In this case  the second way

User · Answer

The second example would be the one to go with  not just for readability  but because of the fact that in the first example  If NOT value1 would return a boolean value to be compared against value2   IOW  you need to rewrite that example as  If NOT  value1   value2    which just makes the use of the NOT keyword pointless

User · Answer

The second example would be the one to go with  not just for readability  but because of the fact that in the first example  If NOT value1 would return a boolean value to be compared against value2   IOW  you need to rewrite that example as  If NOT  value1   value2    which just makes the use of the NOT keyword pointless

User · Answer

Agreed  code readability is very important for others  but more importantly yourself  Imagine how difficult it would be to understand the first example in comparison to the second   If code takes more than a few seconds to read  understand   perhaps there is a better way to write it  In this case  the second way

User · Answer

Because  not        is two operations and   lt    is only one  it is faster to use   lt    Here is a quick experiment to prove it   StartTime   Timer For x   1 to 100000000    If 4  lt  gt  3 Then    End if Next WScript echo Timer-StartTime  StartTime   Timer For x   1 to 100000000    If Not  4   3  Then    End if Next WScript echo Timer-StartTime   The results I get on my machine   4 783203 5 552734

User · Answer

The second example would be the one to go with  not just for readability  but because of the fact that in the first example  If NOT value1 would return a boolean value to be compared against value2   IOW  you need to rewrite that example as  If NOT  value1   value2    which just makes the use of the NOT keyword pointless

User · Answer

The second example would be the one to go with  not just for readability  but because of the fact that in the first example  If NOT value1 would return a boolean value to be compared against value2   IOW  you need to rewrite that example as  If NOT  value1   value2    which just makes the use of the NOT keyword pointless

User · Answer

Agreed  code readability is very important for others  but more importantly yourself  Imagine how difficult it would be to understand the first example in comparison to the second   If code takes more than a few seconds to read  understand   perhaps there is a better way to write it  In this case  the second way

User · Answer

Agreed  code readability is very important for others  but more importantly yourself  Imagine how difficult it would be to understand the first example in comparison to the second   If code takes more than a few seconds to read  understand   perhaps there is a better way to write it  In this case  the second way

User · Answer

Because  not        is two operations and   lt    is only one  it is faster to use   lt    Here is a quick experiment to prove it   StartTime   Timer For x   1 to 100000000    If 4  lt  gt  3 Then    End if Next WScript echo Timer-StartTime  StartTime   Timer For x   1 to 100000000    If Not  4   3  Then    End if Next WScript echo Timer-StartTime   The results I get on my machine   4 783203 5 552734

[vbscript] Is it better to use NOT or <> when comparing values?

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