Forums Scripts & Popups Question about brackets and parentheses

mIRC reads the { } like commands (so it's a little slower), so if you have just one line of code is better to use
if (%a > %b) echo -a %a is bigger!

if the lines are more than one you have to use the { }
if (%a > %b) {
echo -a %a is larger!
echo -a %b is smaller!
}
(i don't like the form command1 | command2 because is less readable)

I also always use the () in the if/while conditions, the code is more readable and don't think that it's slower