If you're relatively new to the PHP language, there's an interesting "shorthand" method for evaluation that you may not know about. In this new tutorial from NetTuts.com they show you this handy method - the ternary operator.

The ternary operator allows us to simplify some PHP conditional statements. We'll see how it can be used, with test-driven development and refactoring, to simplify code.

While the tutorial is largely a screencast, they do provide a quick summary of what the operator is mainly used for and an example for quick reference.