For the range case, languages like Python got it right because the statement &quot;1 &lt; x &lt; 5&quot; means exactly what it would seem to mean.<p>For other languages I’m not sure it matters for inequalities.<p>For equality though, I always use the form &quot;if (constant == x)&quot; as opposed to &quot;if (x == constant)&quot; because in C it <i>guarantees</i> that the compiler will trip over an accidental-assignment typo.  That is, &quot;if (constant = x)&quot; is a compilation error but &quot;if (x = constant)&quot; might be missed.