As part of a code standards document I wrote awhile back, I enforce \"you must always use braces for loops and/or conditional code blocks, even (especially) if they\'re only one
My personal rule is if it's a very short 'if', then put it all on one line:
if(!something) doSomethingElse();
Generally I use this only when there are a bunch of ifs like this in succession.
if(something == a) doSomething(a);
if(something == b) doSomething(b);
if(something == b) doSomething(c);
That situation doesn't arise very often though, so otherwise, I always use braces.