title: why is "if @user.save" used in this way?
body: <p>I'm working through the Michael Hartl's rails book, and I'm curious how this works:</p>
  
  <pre><code>if @user.save 
  
  else
  
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>In if statements, the argument doesn't actually do anything much besides return true or false. </p>
  
  <p>This method seems to save the model to the database and then return true or false. Is this common/am I right? Why do we do it this way?</p>