Summary
In this episode, Jason explains why you should never overload the logical operators && and || in C++. Using a simple example with Compiler Explorer, he demonstrates how overloaded logical operators cannot replicate the essential short-circuit behavior of built-in operators. Jason shows how with built-in boolean operations, evaluation stops as soon as the result is determined (e.g., stopping after a 'true' in an OR operation), but with overloaded operators, all operands must be evaluated regardless of outcome. This fundamental difference makes it impossible to maintain the expected semantics of logical operations when overloading these operators.