> I don't really see how using an Optional type would remove the if(null) checks. It just makes the meaning explicit, which is good but not remedying the origin

> I don't really see how using an Optional type would remove the if(null) checks. It just makes the meaning explicit, which is good but not remedying the original problem. Yeah, the benefit is not really the Option (which you still have to check), the benefit is when there's no Option. I'm not really sold on there being a benefit in Java (looks like those are the code samples in the article?), but in languages where `null` is not a part of the type, and your parameter is just a plain, `int`, say, then you know you don't need to check if it's `null`. In other languages, you either have to always check, or rely on a convention or code flow that has the null checks happening earlier.