How does D handle null pointers?

[dsimcha]

== Quote from Jonathan M Davis (jmdavisprog at gmail.com)'s article
> There are
> quite a few people who want Walter to put in null checks in at least debug mode,
> but he's against it and no one has been able to convince him. So, as far as null
> goes, you're in essentially the same boat as you're in in C and C++, which is a
> major step back in comparison to C# or Java, much as a lot of the rest of D is a
> step forward.
> - Jonathan M Davis

I completely agree that null checks belong in debug mode, but whoever thinks they
belong in release mode as you imply has absolutely no concept of what it means to
be a systems programming language.  If somehow null checks ended up in release
mode, I'd fork the language over it because it would be way too much performance
overhead for a systems language when I didn't ask for it.