Yes - the cache example is bad; my point is the general idea of avoiding branches that merge back into the main function. In your example above, the branch doe

Yes - the cache example is bad; my point is the general idea of avoiding branches that merge back into the main function. In your example above, the branch does merge back, and clearly that's fine for a small function - and common pattern - like this. But the general idea would be to avoid it if possible, because that removes unnecessary complexity.