Best Practice on IF/ELSE Statement Order

Question

Which is a better practice? (I\'m coding in .Net if that makes a difference)

IF condition = true THEN
   ...true action--even if rare...
ELSE
   ...action
E         


        

Answer 1

If the most common case isn't the simplest to express, you might have an opportunity for re-factoring

One useful re-factoring I've found:

if (a.getFoo() == 1 && a.getBar() == 2) 

can be re-factored to

if (a.isFooBar()) 

In come cases something nasty like this,

if (!(fooSet.contains(a.getValidFoo()))) 

could be

if (a.hasInvalidFoo(fooSet)) 

This can make option 1 also be option 2 by simplifying the evaluation of the most common condition.