My Kingdom For ...

[Bill Baxter]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> "Janice Caron" wrote
>> On 21/02/2008, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>> Please please please, can we have this either not compile, or else do a
>>>  reference compare:
>>>
>>>  class C {}
>>>
>>>  C x = null;
>>>  x != null;
>>>  x == null;
>> Yeah, but then how would you call opEquals?
> 
> Simple.  If you are not doing == null, then call opEquals.  And I don't mean 
> make the check at runtime, I mean the compiler should check if you are doing 
> == null with the keyword null, then either throw an error or do the bit 
> compare.  Anything else, call opEquals.  It's one of those little hackish 
> exceptions to the rule that would make life soo much easier, and would not 
> impact anyone adversely.

I'd vote enthusiastically for issuing a warning, but I don't like the 
idea of changing behavior just for that one special case.
For instance what would this do?

C Null = null;
if (x != Null) {...}

Seems pretty confusing to me if that does something different from x!=null.

--bb