3 ms·

> junior level mistakes > Not dealing with null data properly This is _hardly_ a "junior level mistake". That kind of bug is pervasive in all the languages t

• fidotron 1y ago
  From their report: "This policy data contained unintended blank fields." This was reading fields from a database which were coming back null, not some pointer that mutates to being null after a series of nasty state transitions, and so this is very much in the junior category.
  • VWWHFSfQ 1y ago
    It doesn't matter where the null came from, if the language silently allows it then every skill level of engineer will make the mistake.
    • piva00 1y ago
      I don't agree that in this specific case (reading potential null data from a source) it's the kind of failure of null handling that every skill level would do, after you're experienced enough and you are reading values from somewhere with a schema you naturally check the schema to know if you ought handle nulls or not. Even if you are lazy, you want to avoid having to write null-checking and null-handling if it's unnecessary so you will go check the schema. I haven't done such a mistake in many, many years, other kinds of null issues from internal logic I'm still very much guilty of at times, but definitely not "I forgot to handle a null from a data source I read from". It's so pervasive and common that you definitely learn from your mistakes.