alt Hacker News“Why not?” is never a good-enough reason to add a new language feature.
If it’s rarely used, people may misinterpret whether the RHS is evaluated or not when the LHS doesn’t exist (I don’t actually know which it is).
Optional operations and missing properties often require subtle consideration of how to handle them. You don’t want to make it too easy to say “whatever”.
> people may misinterpret whether the RHS is evaluated or not when the LHS doesn’t exist
I fully expect no RHS evaluation in that case. I think the fear is misplaced; it's one of those "why can't I do that when I can do this" IMO. If you're concerned, enable the analyzer to forbid it.
There are already some really overly paranoid analyzers in the full normal set that makes me wonder how masochistic one can be...