It would mightily surprise me – well, I hope that it would – if anyone was seriously prepared to accept any such rationale ...

... because, with or without parentheses, this logic is based on a “side-effect.”

A “side-effect” is not(!) “a clear and unambiguous (“stupid simple™”) expression of the logic’s actual, durable, intention.   Rather, it is an alternate expression that was accepted (most likely, by a coder who knew that his/her work would neither be peer-reviewed nor tested which is most likely why he/she subsequently lost his/her job).

I will very-patiently endure the usual stream of down-votes, which most likely come from people who just got fired ... ahem, I should know ... in order to very-patiently repeat a very-important point:   “Tim Toady.™”

“Is there ‘more than one way to do it?’”   Absolutely, yes.

“So, does it actually matter which one you choose?”   Absolutely, yes!

I very-routinely encounter software applications which are more than 10 years old and which contain more than 7,500 discrete source files.   Somewhere in this tangle you will find, not only every incarnation of the underlying language(s)(!)(!!)(!!!), but also the side-effects of every single “silver-bullet methodology” which has “came and went” during that period of time.

(... every single one of which was predicated on selling Upper Management on the idea that you somehow didn’t know what the f*ck you were doing at that time.”) ... but, I digress.™

Yes, it used to be that CPU-speeds were measured in megaHertz, and “one megabyte” required special processor accommodation.   Perl was there, and you will still encounter plenty of (legacy ...) source-code that was constructed when such concerns were still vitally true.   Today, “the hardware constraints have been very-thoroughly solved.”   But the Tim Toady issues remain ... and, “old habits die hard.”

It’s been a long time now (thank God ...), since we have had to Name That Tune™ using the minimal number of notes possible.   Today, we need (Stupid Simple™) clarity ... and maintainability.

“Whatever you’re writing now, please fast-forward ten or twenty years ...”   Does it really matter?   Yes, it does.