Proposing std.typecons : Optional (with PR) + rant

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Tuesday, 11 June 2019 at 18:01:32 UTC, Nick Treleaven wrote:
> I'd actually rather have language-assisted optional types than 
> features like function overloading (a convenience feature, 
> sometimes abused), because it means *the type system can model 
> runtime checks as a static type guarantee*. They are a game 
> changer.

I don't disagree, but one often end up creating a Nobody subclass 
singleton that is used as a replacement for null. Although that 
does have benefits (e.g. if you call a nobody.name() you get 
"nobody" rather than a crash).