Important, or just Personal Preference?
<p>I have an extension method that returns stuff (strings, lists, bools, etc), and I usually write them like this:</p>

<pre><code>public string Return(string firstName)
{
   /* get first name
   */
   string fname = result.FirstName;

   return fname;
}
</code></pre>

<p>You'll notice that I declared a new variable "fname", and returned it.</p>

<p>But lately I've been doing this:</p>

<pre><code>public string Return(string firstName)
{
   /* code to get first name
   */
   firstName = result.FirstName;
   return firstName;
}
</code></pre>

<p>Which turns out to work the same way.</p>

<p>And while writing this question, I remembered that I can just do this:</p>

<pre><code>public string Return(string firstName)
{
   /* code to get first name
   */
   return result.FirstName;
}
</code></pre>

<p>Does it really matter which way you write this, or does it just come down to personal preference?</p>
