Thanks for stopping by to comment!

I'd love to see some good examples of those bugs you referred to, in order to get some more context.

Is the intent of the second form to evaluate only once, and cache that answer to avoid re-evaluating some_expr?

When some_expr is a simple variable, I didn't think there was any difference between the two forms, and always thought the first form was canonical. It's what I've seen in codebases forever, going all the way back to C, and it's always been very clear.

When some_expr is more complex, i.e. difficult to compute or mutable in my timeframe of interest, I'm naturally inclined to the second form. I've personally found that case less common (eg. how exactly are you using nulls such that you have to bury them so deep down, and is it possible you're over-using nullable types?).

I appreciate what you're saying about nudging developers to the most correct pattern and letting the noise fade away. I always felt C# struck a good balance with that, although as the language evolved it feels like there's been a growing risk of "too many different right ways" to do things.

Btw while you're here, I understand why prefix increment/decrement could get complicated and why it isn't supported, but being forced to do car.Wheel?.Skids += 1 instead of car.Wheel?.Skids++ also feels odd.