Pattern 1: Reasonable Pattern 2: Yes absolutely Pattern 3: Seems a bit inefficient, allocating memory when a simple if statement would avoid calling the metho

Pattern 1: Reasonable Pattern 2: Yes absolutely Pattern 3: Seems a bit inefficient, allocating memory when a simple if statement would avoid calling the method at all. Pattern 4: Would prefer if (foo && bar) { return true; } return baz; Than the proposed solution which is harder to read. Pattern 5: Just no! The repository getRecord method should have no care about coping strategies, which may change depending on the calling context. It should instead throw an RecordNotFoundException. You could also use success and error callbacks in the method signature.