My takes are Unlike crummy barely more than a macro assembler compilers of yore. A modern compiler will optimize away a lot of null pointer checks. Superscala

My takes are Unlike crummy barely more than a macro assembler compilers of yore. A modern compiler will optimize away a lot of null pointer checks. Superscalar processors can chew gum and walk at the same time while juggling and hula hooping. That is if they also don't decide the null check isn't meaningful and toss it away. And yeah checking for null is a trivial operation they'll do while busy with other things. And the performance of random glue code running on a single core isn't where any of the wins are when it comes to speed and hasn't been for 15 years.