I found myself using nil in C++ everywhere. typedef std::optional maybe; using nil = std::nullopt; Not quite the right definition, but I’m on an iPad.

I found myself using nil in C++ everywhere. typedef std::optional maybe; using nil = std::nullopt; Not quite the right definition, but I’m on an iPad. When you combine those with an “either” function which returns either a maybe<T> else a default T, you end up with a nice way of having default args in C++. Everything defaults to nil, then you set it to either(foo, defaultFoo()) in the body of the function. Of course, C++ already has what it calls default arguments. But lisp has corrupted me. The defaults can’t be a function call, and the values can’t refer to other arguments, so they feel useless. Heckin C++. I feel like programmers 80 years from now will still be yearning for an escape, whereas C++100 will still be the dominant systems programming language. Golang was a nice attempt, and so is Rust, but empirically the evidence is that (at least in AI) you can’t escape C++. The best thing to do is to just dive in.