Real example of a "return early pattern" opportunity - actually there are two examples of it in here.

post.php

function genesis_do_post_image() {

	/**
	 * Return Early Pattern opportunity
	 * ================================
	 * Notice that the code wrapped in this conditional block only executes IF the
	 * conditional expression is true. Hum, that means if the conditional expression
	 * is false, then the function is done and nothing else is going to happen.
	 */
	if ( ! is_singular() && genesis_get_option( 'content_archive_thumbnail' ) ) {

		$img = genesis_get_image( array(
			'format'  => 'html',
			'size'    => genesis_get_option( 'image_size' ),
			'context' => 'archive',
			'attr'    => genesis_parse_attr( 'entry-image', array ( 'alt' => get_the_title() ) ),
		) );

		/**
		 * Return Early Pattern opportunity
		 * ================================
		 * Here's another one.  If no image HTML is returned, then the function is done and nothing
		 * else is going to happen. That means the code within the IF block will not execute.
		 */
		if ( ! empty( $img ) ) {

			genesis_markup( array(
 				'html5'   => '<a %s>',
 				'xhtml'   => '<a href="' . get_permalink() . '" class="entry-image-link" aria-hidden="true">',
 				'context' => 'entry-image-link'
 			));

  			echo $img . '</a>';

 		}

	}

}