Why should you avoid the then keyword in Ruby?

Question

It\'s mentioned in several Ruby style guides that you should \"Never use then.\" Personally, I think the \"then\" keyword allows you to make code denser, which tends to be

Answer 1

I almost never use the then keyword. However, there is one case where I believe it greatly improves readability. Consider the following multi conditional if statements.

Example A

if customer.jobs.present? && customer.jobs.last.date.present? && (Date.today - customer.jobs.last.date) <= 90
  puts 'Customer had a job recently'
end

Line length too long. Hard to read.

Example B

if customer.jobs.present? &&
   customer.jobs.last.date.present? &&
   (Date.today - customer.jobs.last.date) <= 90
  puts 'Customer had a job recently'
end

Where do the conditions end and where does the inner code begin. According to must Ruby Style Guides, you to have one extra space of indentation for multi line conditionals, but I still don't find it all the easy to read.

Example C

if customer.jobs.present? &&
   customer.jobs.last.date.present? &&
   (Date.today - customer.jobs.last.date) <= 90
then
  puts 'Customer had a job recently'
end

To me, Example C is by far the most clear. And it is the use of the then that does the trick.