When should a function return? Return Early

"A method should return once at the end of the method". No, I don't think so.

I remember to listen to that sentence when I was learning to program. It was a universal truth to me at the time. I brought this idea to the different languages that I've worked afterwords. Being honest, I always felt something strange about that. Keeping the code readable with a single return was a hard task. I needed to nest conditions, keeping "dummy" variables, having state control variables... It was a mess.

So I changed. I learn to return early and to return often. I prefer to have multiple returns instead of nesting, for example.

A common and useful scenario is when we need to apply preconditions. If we have conditions to execute a given function, makes no sense to delay the verification. If you are cooking a recipe, it wouldn't be fun if you didn't have the ingredients list and you only knew what you need while following the instructions. In code, you can apply the same logic.

If you apply this principle, you will reduce the cyclomatic complexity and the cognitive load to understand the code. In the end, the source code will be simpler.

I recommend you to apply this principle together with the idea of extracting methods.

Code is like a tree. We need to prune and shape the tree. Don't let it grow wild.