Ruby silently evaluating to the wrong value?

gistfile1.rb

ERROR     = "error"
STOPPED   = "stopped"
RUNNING   = "running"

state = ERROR
desired = STOPPED

([RUNNING].include? state) || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
[RUNNING].include?(state) || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
[RUNNING].include? state || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
(state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED) || [RUNNING].include?(state)
(state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED) || [RUNNING].include? state

gistfile2.rb

irb(main):001:0> ERROR     = "error"
=> "error"
irb(main):002:0> STOPPED   = "stopped"
=> "stopped"
irb(main):003:0> RUNNING   = "running"
=> "running"
irb(main):004:0>
irb(main):005:0* state = ERROR
=> "error"
irb(main):006:0> desired = STOPPED
=> "stopped"
irb(main):007:0>
irb(main):008:0* ([RUNNING].include? state) || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
=> true
irb(main):009:0> [RUNNING].include?(state) || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
=> true
irb(main):010:0> [RUNNING].include? state || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)
=> false
irb(main):011:0> (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED) || [RUNNING].include?(state)
=> true
irb(main):012:0> (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED) || [RUNNING].include? state
SyntaxError: (irb):12: syntax error, unexpected tIDENTIFIER, expecting end-of-input
	from /Users/james/.rubies/ruby-2.1.2/bin/irb:11:in `<main>'

I think it's because || has higher operator precedence than ( and ).

But I'm too lazy to check ;)

So this:

[RUNNING].include? state || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED)

Is equivalent to:

[RUNNING].include?(state || (state == ERROR && desired == STOPPED))

This also happens in coffeescript I believe.

@freshtonic is correct, the slight weirdness is caused by the boolean on one side parsing correctly. [RUNNING].include? state || [RUNNING].include? desired would also error

Thanks for getting to the bottom of that!