Golfed code: nested ternaries, comprehensions with several for clauses, lines over 160 characters

Code longer than it needs to be: one of the ways AI coding agents bloat software, from lessloc's pattern catalog. lessloc catches it as clever and dense-lines.

What makes golfed code a bad practice?

The standards that call it a bad practice: Google Python Style Guide: "Optimize for readability, not conciseness"; ESLint no-nested-ternary; Sonar S3358.

What does lessloc do about golfed code?

lessloc catches it as clever and dense-lines. The counterweight to simpler, so shorter never means cryptic.

• clever (tier 2): Golfed code: nested ternaries, nested conditional expressions, comprehensions with several for clauses.
• dense-lines (tier 3): Code lines over 160 characters, long strings and URLs aside.

Examples

Caught as clever:

export const label = (n: number) => (n < 0 ? "neg" : n === 0 ? "zero" : "pos");

Written well:

export function label(n: number) {
  if (n < 0) return "neg";
  return n === 0 ? "zero" : "pos";
}

Caught as clever:

def flat(grid):
    return [c for row in grid for c in row if c]

Written well:

from itertools import chain


def flat(grid):
    return [c for c in chain.from_iterable(grid) if c]

Related patterns

The other patterns in Code longer than it needs to be:

• Brute-force idioms: lessloc catches it as simpler, built in for Python, JS/TS, Go, Rust, Java and C#. ruff (in every hook) and clippy (in ci) go deeper.
• Hand-built counters and flag loops: lessloc catches it as simpler.
• A catch that only rethrows: lessloc catches it as simpler.
• A promise wrapped in new Promise: lessloc catches it as simpler.
• Annotating types the compiler infers: lessloc catches it as simpler.
• A React Effect that only sets state from other values: lessloc catches it as simpler.
• Functions with many parameters (8 or more): lessloc catches it as long-params.
• Deep nesting: lessloc catches it as deep-nesting.
• Long functions: lessloc catches it as long-function.
• If-chains on literal values: lessloc catches it as if-chain.
• A file that keeps growing: lessloc catches it as swollen-file.
• Reformatting lines the task did not change: lessloc gives every session a rule against it and catches it as churn.
• Net growth past a budget: lessloc catches it as net-growth.