The empty method is implemented in the ruby standard library for arrays, strings, and hashes. universal_options used to be a string, but it is now an array. The logic here is now broken because it doesn't evaluate to false when the variable is empty. The empty method most closely follows the intent of this code and should be less likely to fail than the type-specific check if the variable type gets changed again. universal_options as currently implemented is never nil, it returns at least an empty array, but I could do ```(universal_options.nil? || universal_options.empty?)``` if you think it is necessary.

http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Array.html#method-i-empty-3F
http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Hash.html#method-i-empty-3F
http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/String.html#method-i-empty-3F