Non-null objects, the Null Object pattern, and T.init

[Walter Bright]

On 1/17/2014 4:15 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> One problem with null is it's not "proportional response", i.e. it takes the
> application in the back and shoots it in the head instead of e.g. a stale
> display. That _does_ make null special; there's a large category of application
> for which aborting is simply not an option.


I'm aware of that, I was responding to the idea that null pointers are harder to 
track down once detected.

In particular, I don't see how a stale display is an easier bug to track down, 
although granted it is less annoying to the end user.