The truth speaks for itself!
Not just for Ruby this time. This applies to pretty much every programming language under the sun.
Don't use unnecessary control statements to determine whether you want to return true or false.
def foo
if some_boolean && other_boolean
return true
else
return false
end
endYou should do this instead:
def foo
return some_boolean && other_boolean
endIt's very very rare that I ever have to return an explicit true or false. This should be a warning sign.
Of course, in Ruby you don't need to return explicitly so you should do this:
def foo
some_boolean && other_boolean
endLeave feedback...
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So what is it warning you of when you see that?
I could definitely see myself tempted to do it the first way, simply to make it really explicit what it’s doing, Why is that bad?
Apart from being messy and requiring me to load 5 lines – 4 of which are fluff – into my brain to understand it, a benchmark on Ruby 1.8.6pl114 shows being really explicit (first example) takes about 138% of the time, and returning explicitly (second example) takes about 135% of the time that the cut-down version (third example) takes.