Objects.nonNull()

[David M. Lloyd]

On 01/13/2011 04:31 PM, Rémi Forax wrote:
> On 01/13/2011 11:11 PM, Brian Goetz wrote:
>> <rathole>
>> I disagree with Tom here. We have *already* made the billion dollar
>> mistake, and we can't eliminate that headache (but we can provide
>> easier access to aspirin.) Java developers are *constantly* writing
>> methods like the suggested carpet-sweeping nonNull() to work around
>> this (and some of the Objects methods already do this, like
>> hashCode()). If I had to guess how many times this exact method had
>> been written across all the Java code in the world, I would be quite
>> surprised if its common logarithm were less than 4.
>> </rathole>
>
> I disagree.
> Propagating null is rare if your API doesn't allow to take null as
> argument.
> The only place where you need to propagate null is when you output
> something like in Swing or
> in the presentation tier of a webapp.
> Otherwise propagating null is a mistake because it adds layers between
> the bug and it's appearance.

I disagree with your disagreement. :)

A null value very commonly means "not found".  Consider such examples as 
Map.get().  Trying to pretend like null doesn't exist is silly, and 
trying to pretend that people don't write such methods and count on this 
functionality is equally silly.  If you don't think people should be 
using null, say so on your blog; don't enforce your opinion on others 
through core API changes.

I for one like null; I think it is damned handy.  And I think 
propagating it is just fine so long as it is documented as a part of the 
contract of the method.  That's an education issue, not a language issue.

-- 
- DML