Disallow null references in safe code?

[Timon Gehr]

On 02/02/2014 04:39 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> I'm not sure how I feel about that, particularly since I haven't seen such
> data myself. My natural reaction when people complain about null pointer
> problems is that they're sloppy programmers (which isn't necessarily fair, but
> that's my natural reaction).

There is no such thing as 'naturality' that is magically able to justify 
personal attacks in a technical discussion, even if qualified.

> I pretty much never have problems with null
> pointers and have never understood why so many people complain about them.

I guess it is usually some combination of:

Some projects feature more than one programmer.
Hard data.
Aesthetics. (The situation does not have to be unbearable in order to 
improve it!)