On Saturday, 1 February 2014 at 18:58:11 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
On 1/31/14, 5:39 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
Regardless, we're not adding anything with regards to
non-nullable references
to the language itself [...]
I think the sea is changing here. I've collected hard data that
reveals null pointer dereference is a top problem for at least
certain important categories of applications. Upon discussing
that data with Walter, it became clear that no amount of belief
to the contrary, personal anecdote, or rhetoric can stand
against the data.
It also became clear that a library solution would improve
things but cannot compete with a language solution. The latter
can do local flow-sensitive inference and require notations
only for function signatures. Consider:
class Widget { ... }
void fun()
{
// assume fetchWidget() may return null
Widget w = fetchWidget();
if (w)
{
... here w is automatically inferred as non-null ...
}
}
Bottom line: a language change for non-null references is on
the table. It will be an important focus of 2014.
Andrei
That is excellent news.
