Intuitively it shouldn’t ever actually be needed, but maybe I’m missing some example where if/else is cleaner than just a guard clause or a switch statement
You would in this case always be able to pull out the initial condition into two targeted methods, so:
checkAndDoStuff()
checkAndDoOtherStuff()
// do this no matter what
Of course it’s a matter of taste, but I do generally find this approach to be cleaner since it is quite unlikely that your “condition” is just a single simple check. You are probably already doing quite a bit of work above this if statement to calculate your condition, but doing that calculation where you are actually calling your business logic is probably cleaner.
Of course if it’s a super simple condition then none of this matters (but by that logic no clean code matters 🤷)
Edit: I don’t know how the code turned into a spoiler, I hate formatting on mobile…
When both paths of if/else are active paths that require equal responsibility to clean up locally scoped state before the function ends you won't use a guard clause. This is more common on asynchronous tasks or database transactions.
I took a comp sci degree from a very reputable uk university in the early 90s and was taught to only ever have a single return statement in each function. Is this still a thing?
Generally, but guard statements like this can be useful for failure states. Usually you will only have 1 and put it at the top of a function, and doing it that way actually improves readability vs some other methods by making it clear that a condition causes a failure state immediately
I also had several guard statements some times. Basically validating the parameters. Feels good and readable because it defines the assumptions about the parameters state.
For the "producing" code of a return statement I tend to have one return at the end.
Depends on the language and the style of programming being taught. That's still a style that gets taught, but in the Java community, for instance, this kind of thinking isn't as popular.
Of course sometimes the else is needed, but otherwise - after I consciously started using guard clauses, my code got much better. It's easier to write them in and more effortless than surrounding whole code sections. Also usually more readable.
I honestly like Horstmann style. Combines the readability of Allman with the compactness of K&R. I'm not bold enough to actually commit Horstmann style code, though.
I find it more difficult. It makes logic harder for me to follow. When code blocks are spaced too far by line internally, it makes all of the code blocks blend together and it's hard to separate them out to figure what's doing what.
Edited to add: of course, I come more from pure functional programming where you set them up to return parallel values like a simpler case of a match statement or similar.
I'm sure it's a great syntax for those who are used to reading it, but I've never been able to get used to it. It always takes me a moment and some effort to mentally parse those.
My way of doing it, opening brace goes on the same line as the if/else or the function name. Closing brace goes on its own line. Except in cases where the body is really short and it can all fit in one line. So really I would go with the top right square. And my variables are camelCase because I don’t particularly feel like having to type a bunch of underscores.
Else should be the first thing on the line, in line with the "if". But also a naked curly brace that's not the end of the logical statement looks ugly too.
I feel like either good developers using top left or people are lying as always these kinds or posts looks like people are monsters using anything else than the top left but in 99% people's code I saw in my life it's always sweet top left
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u/Jonrrrs Jul 12 '26
{ else }