"The reader finds themselves wondering, "does `send_data` handle an empty array correctly?", and squanders precious seconds scrolling down the page to look. Despite the relief at discovering that of course it does, those seconds--entire, complete, juicy seconds in which the reader might instead be sucking out all the marrow of life, as Mr. Thoreau would no doubt have said when faced with a similar situation--could, at the programmer's discretion, be saved by guarding this call with a kind, if strictly unnecessary, `unless`."