Ternary Operator in JavaScript With Multiple Expressions?

Question

the_styles ? the_styles.appendTo(\'head\'); the_styles=null : the_styles = $(\'.stylesheet\').detach();

Obviously, this isn\'t valid. Notice the \"

Answer 1

Who needs the ternary operator?

​the_styles = !the_styles && $('.stylesheet').detach()​​​​ ||
             the_styles.appendTo('head') && null;​

Had to switch the expressions around as otherwise the null value of the first expression will always force the second expression .detach() to be evaluated.

The only thing about clever code is that once you come back to it after a coffee break, it won't make any sense even to you. So this is much better:

if(the_styles) {
    the_styles.appendTo('head')
    the_styles = null;
}
else {
    the_styles = the_styles.detach('.stylesheet');
}

To me, even the above simplistic version doesn't make any sense. The what part is obvious, but why is it doing that?