Why '&&' and not '&'?

Question

Why is && preferable to & and || preferable to |?

I asked someone who\'s been programming for years a

Answer 1

&& and & mean two very different things and give you two different answers.

1 && 2 yields 1 ("true")
1 & 2 yields 0 ("false")

&& is a logic operator -- it means "true if both of the operands are true"
& is a bitwise comparison. It means "tell me which of the bits are set in both of the operands"