Think again. Null pointers were a "billion dollar mistake" (http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3186 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3186) according to C.A.

Think again. Null pointers were a "billion dollar mistake" (http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3186 http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3186) according to C.A.R. Hoare (no relation to Graydon). Look deeper, there is a rich world of Programming Language history and research linked from Rust's FAQ. Don't cling to your Java or C/C++ null pointers.