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which can be compared to the Algol-family if–then–else expressions (in contrast to a statement) (and similar in Ruby and Scala, among others).

To accomplish the same using an if-statement, this would take more than one line of code (under typical layout conventions), and require mentioning "my_variable" twice:

Some argue that the explicit if/then statement is easier to read and that it may compile to more efficient code than the ternary operator,cite-ref-6[6] while others argue that concise expressions are easier to read than statements spread over several lines containing repetition.

In Visual Basic and some other languages, a function called IIf is provided, which can be used as a conditional expression. However, it does not behave like a true conditional expression, because both the true and false branches are always evaluated; it is just that the result of one of them is thrown away, while the result of the other is returned by the IIf function.

In Tcl if is not a keyword but a function (in Tcl known as command or proc). For example

invokes a function named if passing 2 arguments: The first one being the condition and the second one being the true branch. Both arguments are passed as strings (in Tcl everything within curly brackets is a string).

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