I wouldn't do sample B as written because of the lack of braces for the if, which I'd always add (as well as spreading it out over more lines).
With that change, though, it's something that I do wonder about myself from time to time. With the exact sample given (where the else is just another return statement), I would usually go with sample A because the if-else-chain (which has a known mental model for me) nicely describes what happens. However, when the "else" portion is much larger (i.e. it's the "real implementation" after the corner cases have been taken care of) I'd probably go with something like sample B because it limits the levels of indentation that don't add information.
Ultimately, though, I'm not entirely consistent in this.
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I wouldn't do sample B as written because of the lack of braces for the if, which I'd always add (as well as spreading it out over more lines).
With that change, though, it's something that I do wonder about myself from time to time. With the exact sample given (where the else is just another
returnstatement), I would usually go with sample A because the if-else-chain (which has a known mental model for me) nicely describes what happens. However, when the "else" portion is much larger (i.e. it's the "real implementation" after the corner cases have been taken care of) I'd probably go with something like sample B because it limits the levels of indentation that don't add information.Ultimately, though, I'm not entirely consistent in this.