Pro: Readability
While plenty of people talk about the readability problems with misused ternary operators, there are also situations where using a full if/else would be annoyingly bulky, spreading a simple statement across five lines, and significantly reducing readability. Here are some sample statements pulled from a project I'm working on:
bg_2d.fillStyle = is_in_bounds(x, y) ? grid_colors[x][y] : "#ffffff";const diagonal_slowdown = is_diagonal() ? Math.SQRT2 : 1;const color = (team == "red") ? "#ff0000" : "#0000ff";When you have a simple situation where you have two things to pick from based on a condition, which happens all the time, ternary is perfect. Having a short syntax for ternary massively improves readability in these situations.