> There are somewhat successful languages out there where sending a message to a null object doesn't do anything. The reasons that is defensible in message pas

> There are somewhat successful languages out there where sending a message to a null object doesn't do anything. The reasons that is defensible in message passing systems is because such systems are basically recapitulations of computer networks, and object nullity is equivalent to a network partition. That's the kind of failure mode that you handle in the policy layer, which is above the runtime layer in an application system just as it would be above the network layer in a distributed system.