> Parse, Don't Validate is very much a pattern in which it's crucial to avoid mistakes where maybe you don't have a reference and you need to care about that.

> Parse, Don't Validate is very much a pattern in which it's crucial to avoid mistakes where maybe you don't have a reference and you need to care about that. Wait, what? Parse, Don't Validate is a way to make sure that invalid representations of data don't make its way into your system. Null is just one of many invalid data. Parse, Don't Validate does MORE than just prevent nulls, while the approach you are repeating only protects against nulls. > In languages where the type system won't help catch that mistake it is likely to leak into production. You are correct here: Languages with no enforced compilation step (Python, PHP, Ruby, Javascript) can't help even if you do do Parse, Don't Validate. Languages with a compilation step and mandatory types (C, Go, Java, C++, etc) get the benefit of doing Parse, Don't Validate. While the benefit includes protecting against null dereferencing, it also includes protecting against other incorrect representations of the data. In other words, if you're doing Parse, Don't Validate in Go, or C, or Java, etc, there's not much benefit, if any, to be gained from an option type. Once that $THING enters your system, it's already been transformed into the correct datatype and the compiler will ensure correctness, as far as type mismatches against null go.