Or versus OrElse

Question

What\'s the difference between or and OrElse?

if temp is dbnull.value or temp = 0

produces the error:

Answer 1

Unless your code logic requires the short-circuiting behavior OrElse provides, I would lean toward using the Or operator because:

• Using "Or" is simple and requires less typing.
• The computational time savings of using OrElse is negligible in most cases.
• Most importantly, using OrElse can hide errors in later clauses that may not be initially revealed until those conditions would eventually be met by the program logic.