title: Should I put the easy or the hard case first in an if statement
body: <p>Quite often I have an <code>if</code> statement where I have two cases, one of which requires a one-liner and one of which needs lots of code to be dealt with. From a readability point of view, which should I put first, given that I don't know how likely each one is? So:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if(flag) {
      // lots and lots and lots of code
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // etc
  } else {
      // easy one liner
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>compared to</p>
  
  <pre><code>if(!flag) {
      // easy one liner
  } else {
      // lots and lots and lots of code
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // blah
      // etc
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>Note</strong>: This is not a performance question, but a readability/ease of maintenance one.</p>