Null references redux

[Lutger]

BCS wrote:

> Hello Lutger,
> 
>> The answer may
>> depend on [...]
>> the habits of the 'programmers' in question, I don't know.
>> 
> 
> If you can't trust the programmer to write good code, replace them with
> someone you can trust. There will never be a usable language that can take
> in garbage and spit out correct programs.

Hi. I don't think this argument will work, for several reasons:

First, there is a huge demand for programmers, so much that even I got hired 
in this time of crisis ;) Good programmers don't suddenly fall from the 
skies apparently. 
Second, there are lot's of tasks doable by programmers with less skill than 
others using tools that trade safety for performance / expressiveness / 
whatever. 
Finally, programmers are humans, humans make mistakes, have quirks and bad 
days. All of them. What it comes down to is that languages are made in order 
to service and adapt to the programmers, not the other way around.

Do you maintain that a programmer who can't deal with non-nullable 
references without hacking them away is unusually incompetent? I don't know 
about this. Actually I suspect non-nullable references by default are in the 
end safer (whatever that means), but only if they don't complicate the use 
of nullable references.