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I love Kotlin but please don't abuse its features. I regularly see code like in the first function when you can instead write a simple if statement: it's shorter, easier to read, and doesn't allocate an object! Thankfully both functions compile to the same assembly when R8 is turned on.

My own pet peeve is when folks use `?.let {} ?:` instead of if/else when checking null It's less readable, and more error prone (because if "doThing()" accidentally returns null, then you end up running the ?: branch, which often is not what you actually want.

The absence of the classic ternary operator in Kotlin is probably one of the reasons for this. One of the cases where Kotlin is more verbose than Java.

What I mean is that `val foo = condition ? bar : baz;` is shorter than `val foo = if (condition) bar else baz;`, so developers tend to try to find (often less readable and more bug-prone) alternatives.

I actually think this is a unique example of philosophical incongruence in the language - typically Kotlin feels like a "we give you all the options/operators, pick wisely" stance but in this case they say just use the simple if/else construct