I find the java example different to my experience. java doesn't have all expressions return values, like if, making the attempt to have single returns from functions much harder to do tidily than in other languages like for example ruby, rust, scala.
You can program just about any darned way in Java which can lead to some pretty schizophrenic code bases and organizations. I recall a fairly recent code review where the author had a static method in a class which took in another type, did some reasoning on the state of the type and returned a result. I asked why that method was not in the type itself since all the state required to answer the question lived in the instance of that object. The author said, oh we tend not to use “smart” objects.
