Why is short-circuiting not the default behavior in VB?

Question

VB has operators AndAlso and OrElse, that perform short-circuiting logical conjunction.

Why is this not the default behavior of And

Answer 1

I do not find short-circuiting to be useful in every case. I use it only when required. For instance, when checking two different and unconnected variables, it would not be required:

  If x > y And y > z Then

  End If

As the article by Paul Vick illustrates (see link provided by Ken Browning above), the perfect scenario in which short-circuiting is useful is when an object has be checked for existence first and then one of its properties is to be evaluated.

  If x IsNot Nothing AndAlso x.Someproperty > 0 Then

  End If

So, in my opinion both syntactical options are very much required.