The items don't seem concise and always clear. But seems like a good, inspiring resource for things to consider.
If it is expected that a method might fail, then it should fail, either by throwing an Exception or, if not - it should return a special case None/Null type object of the desired class (following the Null Object Pattern), not null itself.
I've never heard of evading null with a Null object. Seems like a bad idea to me. Maybe it could work in some language, but generally I would say prefer result typing. Introducing a result type wrapping or extending the result value type is complexity I would be very evasive to introduce if the language doesn't already support result wrapper/state types.
We use null objects at work, and as another person said they are a safety feature. Here’s how they work: they are wrappers around another type. They provide the same interface as the wrapped type. They store one global instance of the wrapped type, default initialized, in a memory page marked read-only.
Here’s why they are considered a safety feature (note: most of this is specific to c++).
Suppose you have a collection, and you want to write a function that finds an item in the collection. Find can fail, of course. What do you return in that case?
Reasonable options would be a null pointer, or std::nullopt. Having find return a std::optional would be perfect, because that’s the exact use case for it. You either found the item or you did not.
Now, the problem is that in most cases you don’t want to copy the item that was found in the collection when you return it, so you want to return a pointer or a reference. Well, std::optional is illegal. After all, an optional reference has the same semantics as a pointer, no? This means your find function cannot return an optional, it has to return a pointer with the special sentinel value of nullptr meaning “not found”.
But returning nullptr is dangerous, because if you forget to check the return value and you accidentally dereference it you invoke undefined behavior which in this case will usually crash the program.
Here’s where the null object comes in. You make find just return a reference. If the item is not found, you return a reference to the null object of the relevant type. Because the null object always exists, it’s not UB to access it. And because it is default initialized, trying to get a value from it will just give you the default value for that data member.
Basically it’s a pattern to avoid crashing if tou forget to check for nullptr
I’ve never heard of evading null with a Null object.
This is quite standard, and in fact it's even a safety feature. C++ introduced nullptr defined as an instance of std::nullptr_t explicitly with this in mind.
This approach is also quite basic in monadic types.
"Monadic type" has something like three meanings depending on context, and it's not clear which one you mean. One of them is common in math, but not so common in programming, so probably not that. But neither "parametric types with a single argument" nor "types that encode a category-theoretic monad" have the property you say, as far as I know.
I imagine you're probably referring to the latter, since the optional monad exists. That's very different from returning null. The inhabitants of Integer in Java, for example, are the boxed machine ints and null. The inhabitants of Optional[Integer] (it won't let me use angle brackets here) are Optional.of(i) for each machine int i, Optional.empty(), andnull.
Optional.empty() is not null and should not be called a "Null object." It's also not of type Integer, so you're not even allowed to return it unless the function type explicitly says so. Writing such function types is pretty uncommon to do in java programs but it's more normal in kotlin. In languages like Haskell, which don't have null at all, this is idiomatic.
I think you're trying too hard to confuse yourself.
with this in mind
With what in mind? Evading NULL?
Languages that make use of references rather than pointers don't have this Dualism. C# has nullable references and nullability analysis, and null as a keyword.
What does your reasoning mean in that context?
With what in mind? Evading NULL?
Depends on your perspective. It's convenient to lean on type checking to avoid a whole class of bugs. You can see this either as avoiding NULL or use your type system to flag misuses.
Languages that make use of references rather than pointers don’t have this Dualism. C# has nullable references and nullability analysis, and null as a keyword.
C#'s null keyword matches the monadic approach I mentioned earlier. Nullable types work as a Maybe monad. It's the same concept shoehorned differently due to the different paths taken by these languages.
This doesn't seem overly useful.
It's a list taken out of a bunch of books with no regard for how something can be the best path in one language and a smell in another language.
It suggests using functional loop methods (.map(), .reduce(), .filter()) instead of using imperative loops (for, for in, for each) but completely disregards the facts that imperative loops also have access to the break, continue, and return keywords to improve performance.
For example:
If I have an unsorted list of 1000 cars which includes a whole bunch of information per car (e.g. color, year manufactured, etc...), and I want to know if there were any cars were manufactured before the year 1980, I can run an imperative loop through the list and early return true if I find one, and only returning false if I haven't found one by the end of the list.
If the third car was made in 1977, then I have only iterated through 3 cars to find my answer.
But if I were to try this with only functional loops, I would have to iterate through all 1000 cars before I had my answer.
A website with blind rules like this is going to lead to worse code.
..what? At least with Java Streams or Kotlin Sequences, they absolutely abort early with something like .filter().first().
Same in Python, Rust, Haskell and probably many others.
But apparently JS does work that way, that is its filter always iterates over everything and returns a new array and not some iterator object.
The items don't seem concise and always clear. But seems like a good, inspiring resource for things to consider.
I've never heard of evading null with a Null object. Seems like a bad idea to me. Maybe it could work in some language, but generally I would say prefer result typing. Introducing a result type wrapping or extending the result value type is complexity I would be very evasive to introduce if the language doesn't already support result wrapper/state types.
We use null objects at work, and as another person said they are a safety feature. Here’s how they work: they are wrappers around another type. They provide the same interface as the wrapped type. They store one global instance of the wrapped type, default initialized, in a memory page marked read-only.
Here’s why they are considered a safety feature (note: most of this is specific to c++).
Suppose you have a collection, and you want to write a function that finds an item in the collection. Find can fail, of course. What do you return in that case? Reasonable options would be a null pointer, or
std::nullopt. Having find return astd::optionalwould be perfect, because that’s the exact use case for it. You either found the item or you did not.Now, the problem is that in most cases you don’t want to copy the item that was found in the collection when you return it, so you want to return a pointer or a reference. Well,
std::optionalis illegal. After all, an optional reference has the same semantics as a pointer, no? This means your find function cannot return an optional, it has to return a pointer with the special sentinel value ofnullptrmeaning “not found”.But returning
nullptris dangerous, because if you forget to check the return value and you accidentally dereference it you invoke undefined behavior which in this case will usually crash the program.Here’s where the null object comes in. You make find just return a reference. If the item is not found, you return a reference to the null object of the relevant type. Because the null object always exists, it’s not UB to access it. And because it is default initialized, trying to get a value from it will just give you the default value for that data member.
Basically it’s a pattern to avoid crashing if tou forget to check for nullptr
This is quite standard, and in fact it's even a safety feature. C++ introduced nullptr defined as an instance of std::nullptr_t explicitly with this in mind.
https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/language/nullptr
This approach is also quite basic in monadic types.
"Monadic type" has something like three meanings depending on context, and it's not clear which one you mean. One of them is common in math, but not so common in programming, so probably not that. But neither "parametric types with a single argument" nor "types that encode a category-theoretic monad" have the property you say, as far as I know.
I imagine you're probably referring to the latter, since the optional monad exists. That's very different from returning null. The inhabitants of
Integerin Java, for example, are the boxed machine ints andnull. The inhabitants ofOptional[Integer](it won't let me use angle brackets here) areOptional.of(i)for each machine inti,Optional.empty(), andnull.Optional.empty()is not null and should not be called a "Null object." It's also not of typeInteger, so you're not even allowed to return it unless the function type explicitly says so. Writing such function types is pretty uncommon to do in java programs but it's more normal in kotlin. In languages like Haskell, which don't havenullat all, this is idiomatic.I think you're trying too hard to confuse yourself.
With what in mind? Evading
NULL?Languages that make use of references rather than pointers don't have this Dualism. C# has nullable references and nullability analysis, and
nullas a keyword.What does your reasoning mean in that context?
Depends on your perspective. It's convenient to lean on type checking to avoid a whole class of bugs. You can see this either as avoiding NULL or use your type system to flag misuses.
C#'s
nullkeyword matches the monadic approach I mentioned earlier. Nullable types work as aMaybemonad. It's the same concept shoehorned differently due to the different paths taken by these languages.This doesn't seem overly useful.
It's a list taken out of a bunch of books with no regard for how something can be the best path in one language and a smell in another language.
Look at this page for example: https://luzkan.github.io/smells/imperative-loops
It suggests using functional loop methods (
.map(),.reduce(),.filter()) instead of using imperative loops (for,for in,for each) but completely disregards the facts that imperative loops also have access to thebreak,continue, andreturnkeywords to improve performance.For example: If I have an unsorted list of 1000 cars which includes a whole bunch of information per car (e.g. color, year manufactured, etc...), and I want to know if there were any cars were manufactured before the year 1980, I can run an imperative loop through the list and early return true if I find one, and only returning false if I haven't found one by the end of the list.
If the third car was made in 1977, then I have only iterated through 3 cars to find my answer.
But if I were to try this with only functional loops, I would have to iterate through all 1000 cars before I had my answer.
A website with blind rules like this is going to lead to worse code.
..what? At least with Java Streams or Kotlin Sequences, they absolutely abort early with something like
.filter().first().Same in Python, Rust, Haskell and probably many others.
But apparently JS does work that way, that is its
filteralways iterates over everything and returns a new array and not some iterator object.