Why would I use if and let together, instead of just checking if the original variable is nil? (Swift)

Question

In “The Swift Programming Language.” book, Apple mentions using if and let together when accessing an optional variable.

The book gives the

Answer 1

It isn't actually needed in that case. You could just use optionalName in the if. But if optionalName was a calculated property it would have to be calculated in the conditional then again in the body. Assigning it to name just makes sure it is only calculated once.