This seems pretty simple to me. You can either use null, and force checks before any reference to a nullable value (of course, these checks are usually skipped)

This seems pretty simple to me. You can either use null, and force checks before any reference to a nullable value (of course, these checks are usually skipped). Or, you can not use null and use something like Option/Maybe to encode a missing value. What this really comes down to is, do you prefer to have guarantees, or do you think that "less code"/"less useless checks" is better. In my mind, the only way to write robust, maintainable code is to not use null and use Option/Maybe.