Benefits of using the conditional ?: (ternary) operator

Question

What are the benefits and drawbacks of the ?: operator as opposed to the standard if-else statement. The obvious ones being:

Conditional ?: Operator

Answer 1

One thing to recognize when using the ternary operator that it is an expression not a statement.

In functional languages like scheme the distinction doesn't exists:

(if (> a b) a b)

Conditional ?: Operator "Doesn't seem to be as flexible as the if/else construct"

In functional languages it is.

When programming in imperative languages I apply the ternary operator in situations where I typically would use expressions (assignment, conditional statements, etc).