Ad 2: Things evolve. If you stopped somwhere in the mid 90, you won't notice. But in Java 8 you can do null checking easily using Optional. Your example would b

Ad 2: Things evolve. If you stopped somwhere in the mid 90, you won't notice. But in Java 8 you can do null checking easily using Optional. Your example would be: String address = a.map(A::b).map(B::c).map(C::d).orElse("UNKNOWN");