It's just a convenience/backwards compatibility feature, AFAIK.
If your already passing a channel in, you'd obviously just ignore the return value.
If your already passing a channel in, you'd obviously just ignore the return value.
Is this simply two different ways of achieving the same end result? OR am I missing the point of having a channel parameter *and* having a channel object returned from either function?
I think you're I missing the point of having an *optional* channel parameter. ;o)