I don't think you're in the minority. Whenever possible the happy path should be inside the if. The article seems to imply otherwise but on re-read I think he i

I don't think you're in the minority. Whenever possible the happy path should be inside the if. The article seems to imply otherwise but on re-read I think he is just building the case for putting the simple, quick pre-condition type handling up front which generally removes the need for the if/then (which I agree with). For complex methods with branching logic you want prominently displayed, you'd end up with: def myfunction(args) { // check preconditions, return early if (x) { // happy path } else { // less happy path } } But if the else just contains a bunch of error handling you always have the option of wrapping it in a handler method and putting it near the top in a on-liner.