I used to write Ruby code like this a lot when I my brain was still half .NET.

def is_ready?
  if self.status > 3
    return true
  else
    return false
  end
end

I see this all the time on the Rails mailing list. Would you be surprised to know that you can write the same method this way:

def ready?
  self.status > 3
end

(I’d do away the the magic number “3” in favor of a constant, but I digress…)

Notice two things:

• Methods that return a true/false indicator should end with a question mark. For more on this topic, see my other post on the topic of naming conventions in Ruby.
• Ruby uses the last-evaluated expression as the return value. No need to wrap it with a useless if/else block.

Questions? Got another example of code patterns you’ve seen that could be simpler? Use Textile formatting in the comments.