Exceptions are not for flow control!

[].rb

>> Benchmark.ips do |i|
 |   nodes = []  
 |   
 |   i.report('lonely') do     
 |     nodes&.first         
 |   end     
 |   
 |   i.report('if') do   
 |     nodes.first if nodes    
 |   end    
 |   
 |   i.report('rescue') do  
 |   nodes.first rescue nil        
 |   end      
 | end  
Warming up --------------------------------------
              lonely   166.968k i/100ms
                  if   167.364k i/100ms
              rescue   171.235k i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
              lonely     11.652M (± 6.5%) i/s -     58.105M
                  if     11.139M (± 7.3%) i/s -     55.397M
              rescue     11.521M (± 8.2%) i/s -     57.192M

nil.rb

>> Benchmark.ips do |i|
 |   nodes = nil   
 |
 |   i.report('lonely') do  
 |     nodes&.first    
 |   end 
 |
 |   i.report('if') do
 |     nodes.first if nodes
 |   end
 |
 |   i.report('rescue') do
 |     nodes.first rescue nil  
 |   end  
 | end  
Warming up --------------------------------------
              lonely   169.405k i/100ms
                  if   170.775k i/100ms
              rescue     1.177k i/100ms
Calculating -------------------------------------
              lonely     13.127M (± 5.8%) i/s -     65.390M
                  if     13.091M (± 6.8%) i/s -     65.236M
              rescue     12.152k (±11.3%) i/s -     61.204k