(non)nullable types

[Sebastian Biallas]

Christopher Wright wrote:
> Oh, and I vote no. I think it's needless complexity. I code without any 
> special care for null objects, and I get a segfault or 
> NullReferenceException maybe once a week, probably less. I've always 
> been able to track down the bug very quickly.

That misses the point completely. It's not about you (as the programmer) 
getting NPEs; it's about the user getting bug-free software in the first 
place.

In most cases a segfault/NPE is easy to track down for the programmer, I 
guess nobody would object to this. But once the software is shipped, 
it's a very serious problem: It's a situation the programmer didn't 
thought about so you usually have a data loss.

I really like the approach of the Nice[1] language: Before you can 
access a nullable type you have to test whether it's null. After the 
test, the type is automagically converted to a nonnullable type. This 
language doesn't have a NPE, so you *know* that your software is 
bug-free in this regard.

[1] http://nice.sf.net

Sebastian