its subjective, arguably a style using ternary operator is better because it is composable - it evaluates as an expression, as opposed to a series of statements. it's something the lisp and functional programming people like - no implied dependency on order in which statements execute.

i dunno if this is valid python but it demonstrates the idea

  doSomething(
    identify_vertebrate(animal) if animal.is_vertebrate() \
    else identify_invertebrate(animal))

  doSomething( if( is_vertebrate(animal)
                   identify_vertebrate(animal)
                   identify_invertebrate(animal)))

  (doSomething (if (is_vertebrate animal)
                   (identify_vertebrate animal)
                   (identify_invertebrate animal)))

this is part of "referential transparency", and once you get past "OMG parens" you realize its a Good Thing. parens are caused by a style preferring composition of expressions over executing statements, not lisp.

I dunno, I like the readability of an explicit else.