<p> This code seems to be using non-short-circuit logic (e.g., &amp;
or |)
rather than short-circuit logic (&amp;&amp; or ||). In addition, 
it seem possible that, depending on the value of the left hand side, you might not
want to evaluate the right hand side (because it would have side effects, could cause an exception
or could be expensive.</p>
<p>
Non-short-circuit logic causes both sides of the expression
to be evaluated even when the result can be inferred from
knowing the left-hand side. This can be less efficient and
can result in errors if the left-hand side guards cases
when evaluating the right-hand side can generate an error.
</p>

<p>See <a href="http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/expressions.html#15.22.2">the Java
Language Specification</a> for details

</p>