While one should refrain from creating a spaghetti control flow, the "single entry, single return" guideline originates from times and reasons long forgotten and it has not much of applicaiton today: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/118703/where-did-the-notion-of-one-return-only-come-from . People stick to it because they like to repeat seemingly authoritative stuff without exactly understanding it. Excessive sticking to Single Return Rule (no more room for Single Entry Rule in modern languages) is usually a cargo cult programming at its best.