[brundolf]

Unpopular opinion: I think early-returns make code less readable if you don't put the rest of the function in an else clause. You lose visual parallelism, and suddenly instead of following a tree down to a series of leaves where every leaf terminates, you have to have the full context to know whether or not a line of code may not execute in some cases. For example:

  function foo(x) {
    if (x == null) {
      return null;
    }

    x += 2;
    return x;
  }

I can't just look at "x += 2;" and know whether or not it's conditionalized. I have to have the full context including the early-return, and then reason about the control flow from there. Whereas:

  function foo(x) {
    if (x == null) {
      return null;
    } else {
      x += 2;
      return x;
    }
  }

Here I can tell just from the else-block that this is one possibility which will execute if the other one does not, and vice-versa. Their indentation is the same, cementing their relationship. If I want to know whether this block will execute I need only look at the if()'s, not their contents.

[kbenson]

I think your version isn't really as different as it seems to some. To me, the essential bit of early return is that you handle cases that eliminate the work first. That is, it's less about singular if statements separating the rest of the body of the function than it is clearly short circuiting the code as early as is clearly possible.

That is, I don't think it matters too much whether you do:

    function div(x,y) {
      if (y == null) {
        return null;
      }
      if (y == 0) {
        return null;
      }
    
      return x/y;
    }

or

    function div(x,y) {
      if (y == null) {
        return null;
      } else if (y == 0) {
        return null;
      } else {
        return x/y;
      }
    }

as they both accomplish the same major benefit of the pattern.

The real thing it's helping to avoid is accidentally creating something like this:

    function div(x,y) {
      if (y != null) {
        if (y != 0) {
          return x/y;
        } else {
          return null;
        }
      } else {
        return null;
      }
    }

which can quickly get very hard to reason about without in more complex cases.

[brundolf]

You're right that both technically qualify as early-return, which is why I qualified my original statement with "if you don't put the rest of the function in an else clause".

In practice, in C-like languages, I tend to see the "else-less" version which is why I brought it up

[kbenson]

If you haven't seen it, Kevlin Henney's talk about "The Forgotten Art of Structured Programming"[1] is interesting (if somewhat long in the examples later), and somewhat related. It's not specifically about return early (and a case could be made that it should or should not apply specifically to early return), but it is about if, else, return, and how they affect cognitive load when reading code.

1: https://youtu.be/SFv8Wm2HdNM

[cryptonector]

On the contrary, if early returns allow you to outdent a larger portion of code then it's quite a readability win. As long as all the early return cases are bite-sized and the last case long-ish, it's a readbility win.

[jbverschoor]

And certain languages allow:

return nil if n.nil?

[sneak]

I really miss postfix conditionals from perl/ruby/coffeescript in all of the other languages. (Along with until/unless, which are just while! and if!.)

I asked on the go-nuts mailing list about perhaps including them in go2, but it seems many of the people who replied hate them.

[ufo]

I have the same opinion. I like the early-return pattern when it's doing input validation or raising errors but for most other things I prefer how the if-else highlights that there are two possible paths that the code can take. Just because the "then" branch has a return statement doesn't mean that we should get rid of the "else".

[t-writescode]

I think the bigger problem you may be experiencing, if I had to guess, code structure.

If people tend to write:

   function foo(x) {
     if (x == null) {
       return null;
     }

     // do some stuff to the code


     for(a reason) {
        // do some more stuff
        if(some detailed reason) {
          return null;
     }

     // more things
     return 7;
   }

Then the shape of the code and the "pattern" of early returns gets broken.

If you read code where all of the short-circuit, early-return logic is at the start of the function, and then all of the work is done, do you still have this opinion?

E.g.

   function foo(x) {
      if(x == 1) { return null; }
      if(x == 2) { return null; }
      if(x > 7) { return null; }

      // do things with x
      return 7;
   }
?

[brundolf]

The problem is definitely much worse when returns are scattered throughout the function instead of grouped at the top, but I still prefer them to be "elsed" together (or in a switch/cond/match statement or whatever). Worth noting that in Lisp - one of the classical languages where early-returning is popular - there isn't a problem because it is done as I describe:

  (cond
    (early-return-condition early-value)
    (second-early-condition early-value2)
    ...
    (t final-else-value))

The "default case" is on the same footing as the other cases. Only in procedural languages does the control-flow get confusing if you aren't careful.

[t-writescode]

If you want elses everywhere, how do you protect yourself from nesting hell? I find nesting hell to be far, far, faaaar worse for readability than any of the alternatives, and will move to the early return model to escape all that nesting.

[brundolf]

I dunno, I just rarely ever find myself nesting more than two or three levels of conditionals even in extreme cases. If my logic really is that complicated, it's probably a sign it needs to be broken up anyway. And if I did need that much branching, I would want to be more explicit about it, not less.

Also - at the very least - you can mimick the "flat" early-return style and just stick some else's in there and call it a day. That's my main point; less so the actual deeper nesting

[tpoacher]

I agree, but also I think this is misrepresenting the 'early return' pattern. It's more likely to be succinct and look like this instead:

    function check(x) {
        if (!test1 (x))   return false;
        if (!test2 (x))   return false;
        if (!test3 (x))   return false;
        if (!test4 (x))   return false;
        return true;
    }

In _this_ scenario, it is true that this is much more readable than:

    function check(x) {
        if (!test1 (x)) {
           return false; 
        } else if (!test2 (x)) {
           return false;
        } else if (!test3 (x)) {
           return false;
        } else if (!test4 (x)) {
           return false;
        } else {
           return true;
        }
    }

[tsimionescu]

Never ever use if without curly braces. That's one of the worst ideas of C's syntax.

Your first example would still look clean like this:

  function check(x) {
      if (!test1 (x)) { return false; }
      if (!test2 (x)) { return false; }
      if (!test3 (x)) { return false; }
      if (!test4 (x)) { return false; }
      return true;
  }

And it would be much safer from stupid copy/paste errors.

[jhgb]

Instead of

    function check(x) {
        if (!test1 (x))   return false;
        if (!test2 (x))   return false;
        if (!test3 (x))   return false;
        if (!test4 (x))   return false;
        return true;
    }

why wouldn't you do something along the lines of

    (every (lambda (f) (funcall f x)) (list #'test1 #'test2 #'test3 #'test4a))

or whatever is the equivalent in your preferred language?

[wvenable]

The tests are rarely that simple or regular.

[jhgb]

Isn't that exactly the reason to put them somewhere else?

[wvenable]

No, I just mean the actual tests might be something like:

    if (user == null) return false;
    if (IsCompleted(user)) return true;
    if (action == null) return false;
    if (value < 0 || value > 100) return false;   

You're not usually just passing a single value to a bunch of "test" functions.

[jhgb]

Well, the way it was written, I was assuming that conditions to be satisfied had separate named predicates (although combinators could alleviate even some of these things).

[brundolf]

Worth noting that elses don't require curly braces, which are where most of the visual noise is coming from in your example:

  function check(x) {
    if (!test1 (x))      return false; 
    else if (!test2 (x)) return false;
    else if (!test3 (x)) return false;
    else if (!test4 (x)) return false;
    else                 return true;
  }

I think this is more clear than either of the above

[tpoacher]

> Worth noting that elses don't require curly braces

True. I still think the first is clearer though. Either all tests pass, or they don't.

[tpoacher]

(also I'd be very skeptical of such an if..else ladder. Prime target for bugs.)

[alerighi]

That code is ugly anyway, something I would have wrote in middle school... why not:

    function check(x) {
        return test1(x) && test2(x) && test3(x) && test4(x);
    }

Or, since I assume is JavaScript, just:

    const check = x => test1(x) && test2(x) && test3(x) && test4(x);

[brundolf]

Nobody would actually write this, it's just a demonstration of the pattern at hand for the sake of discussion

[wvenable]

For a single condition it doesn't matter much either way for readability. But once you have a number of conditions the if/else style becomes unwieldy.

I put all my early returns at the top as these are the preconditions for the rest of the code; I don't think that's hard to understand.

[darepublic]

Nit, the x is a copy so it won't change the value of x outside the function. So I would rewrite ad

const foo = x => x !== null ? x + 2 : null