title: Explicitly calling return in a function or not
body: <p>A while back <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10412720/rserve-return-type-in-case-of-multiple-statements/10413020#10413020">I got rebuked</a> by Simon Urbanek from the R core team (I believe) for recommending a user to explicitly calling <code>return</code> at the end of a function (his comment was deleted though):</p>
  
  <pre><code>foo = function() {
    return(value)
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>instead he recommended:</p>
  
  <pre><code>foo = function() {
    value
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Probably in a situation like this it is required:</p>
  
  <pre><code>foo = function() {
   if(a) {
     return(a)
   } else {
     return(b)
   }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>His comment shed some light on why not calling <code>return</code> unless strictly needed is a good thing, but this was deleted. </p>
  
  <p>My question is: Why is not calling <code>return</code> faster or better, and thus preferable?</p>