The reason I don't like this way is it can be harder to refactor. You don't want "return 1" happening if cond. For example, if you refactor to something like th

The reason I don't like this way is it can be harder to refactor. You don't want "return 1" happening if cond. For example, if you refactor to something like this: func hello() int { var result int if cond { result = 0 } result = 1 // New code with result return result } Now, in this case, you don't want result to be 1 if cond, so you have to add the else condition. If you start with if-else, this is less likely to bit you in the future. This particular bug just bit me in a bad way in production because I had what you have and and to make an quick production fix and did a refactor just like this and missed adding the else.