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I think they made a much better decision then everyone else even if verbose. Nearly every language has continued to repeat Tony Hoare's "billion dollar" mistak

by jroesch 10y ago

I think they made a much better decision then everyone else even if verbose. Nearly every language has continued to repeat Tony Hoare's "billion dollar" mistake of allowing null to inhabit any type. I think approaches like Rust's and Swift's are steps to stamp out something that never should of existed in the first place.

paulddraper 10y ago
> Nearly every language has continued to repeat Tony Hoare's "billion dollar" mistake of allowing null to inhabit any type. Perhaps I was unclear. I could not agree more with this assessment (see link to my blog post in sibling). I was merely commenting on Swift's choice to do it in a (to quote the OP) "clever" way, rather than a general one like Rust or Scala.