I wish and hope that, in some future version of the Java language, they will change the behavior of Java references so that they are explicitly non-null by defa

I wish and hope that, in some future version of the Java language, they will change the behavior of Java references so that they are explicitly non-null by default, and require an annotation or signifier of some kind to mark them as nullable. The Kotlin language (JVM-based) got this right: https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/null-safety.html https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/null-safety.html In the meantime, Java coding best practices dictate treating all references as non-null in first-party code (defensively checking references received from third-party code, such as with Objects.requireNonNull), and avoiding nullable references in favor of Optional.