String.equals() argument ordering

Question

I recently received a downvote for using the following in a recent answer:

String word = ...;
if (\"s\".equals(word) || \"y\".equals(word)

Answer 1

Yoda conditions (i.e. putting a constant before a variable in a comparison) can be considered bad practice as it makes the line of code less comprehensible. In this specific case however I would state that using a Yoda condition makes the code more comprehensible as you don't have to put a extra null check in front of it.