Should else branches always be required?

[Feliix42]

Just wanted to throw this question in the room. Currently, every if control structure requires an else branch, which makes sense i.e., for assignments. But one might want to execute a block of the algorithm conditionally based on the control port value. In that case, the current implementation would not be the best fit.

What do you think? Make else optional or keep it required?

[sertel]

To be honest, I really don't like implicit else branches. I always write empty ones into my code to make it more straight forward to see what is actually happening.

Apart from that, considering that an if-the-else block is just a function, what would be its result (type) when the if-branch is not being executed?

Can you please post your example code?