On 5/25/2013 5:14 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
I completely disagree that null pointers are a problem. I don't even remember
the last time that I dereferenced a null pointer in my code, and I think that
null can be extremely useful. And yet for whatever reason, there are quite a
few people who seem to think that it's a great cause for bugs. Clearly,
they're doing something differently than I do.
It was Hoare's engaging presentation on it that turned it into a cause celebre.
Null pointers aren't even remotely the source of most programming bugs. If they
were, then languages that disallow them would be super-productive in comparison.
But they aren't. They're just an incremental step, and elevating it into a "deal
breaker" is frankly ridiculous.
His point about memory safety, though, makes a lot more sense.
