In the first place, a language that exposes pointers may not be able to do away with null. But as for languages like Java, the problem can be solved with the he

In the first place, a language that exposes pointers may not be able to do away with null. But as for languages like Java, the problem can be solved with the help of an implicit, non-mutable default object: Foo foo; // initialized to default if (x) { // stuff foo = Foo.p1; } else { // stuff foo = Foo.p2; } // No need to check if this is a valid reference, it always will be. foo.bar();