Question

Is there any difference if I leave the parentheses around queryable and OrderByDescending(...) (and before Take(1)) or remove them? Why or why not?

public static IQueryable<IEffectiveDated> GetCurrent(this IQueryable<IEffectiveDated> queryable, DateTime asOfDate) 
{           
    return (queryable
        .Where(e => e.EffectiveDate <= asOfDate)
        .OrderByDescending(e => e.EffectiveDate))
        .Take(1);       
}

Answer 1

There’s no difference in this case. In other words:

return (queryable
    .Where(e => e.EffectiveDate <= asOfDate)
    .OrderByDescending(e => e.EffectiveDate))
    .Take(1);

is identical to:

return queryable
    .Where(e => e.EffectiveDate <= asOfDate)
    .OrderByDescending(e => e.EffectiveDate)
    .Take(1);

The later is probably cleaner and better shows the Linq chaining.