Return early from a function when checking initial conditions

When conditionally executing logic in a function based on some initial condition(s), consider returning early.

Guards implement this pattern.

❌Bad:

function getConfigOption(filePath, key) {
  if (typeof filePath === 'string') {
    const contents = fs.readFileSync(filePath, 'utf8');
    const configJson = JSON.parse(contents);
    return configJson[key];
  } else {
    throw new Error('No config file path was supplied');
  }
}

✅Good:

function getConfigOption(filePath, key) {
  if (!filePath) {
    throw new Error('No config file path was supplied');
  }

  const contents = fs.readFileSync(filePath, 'utf8');
  const configJson = JSON.parse(contents);
  return configJson[key];
}

By returning (or throwing!) early, we reduce the level of nesting for the rest of the function, improving readability.

You can write multiple guards at the top of the function:

function getConfigOption(filePath, key) {
  assert(typeof filePath === 'string', 'config file path must be supplied');
  assert(typeof key === 'string', 'config key must be supplied');

  const contents = fs.readFileSync(filePath, 'utf8');
  const configJson = JSON.parse(contents);
  return configJson[key];
}

Note: This doesn't advocate for randomly returning in the middle of a function - which would be somewhat chaotic :)