Great list, even if I disagree with many of the ratings!
But astonished that Optional isn't mentioned either there or in the comments. A second way to represent no-value, with unclear and holy-war-ushering guidance on when to use, and the not exactly terse syntax I see everywhere:
Optional<Ick> ickOpt = Optional.ofNullable(ickGiver.newIck());
ickOpt.flatMap(IckWtfer::wtf).ifPresentOrElse((Wtf wtf) -> unreadable(wtf)), () -> { log.warn("in what universe is this clearer than a simple if == null statement?!"); });
You could maybe move the null check inside the method in the former and it cleans it up a bit, but in the latter you can have methods that are explicitly marked as taking NonNull in their type signature which is nice.
But astonished that Optional isn't mentioned either there or in the comments. A second way to represent no-value, with unclear and holy-war-ushering guidance on when to use, and the not exactly terse syntax I see everywhere:
Optional<Ick> ickOpt = Optional.ofNullable(ickGiver.newIck()); ickOpt.flatMap(IckWtfer::wtf).ifPresentOrElse((Wtf wtf) -> unreadable(wtf)), () -> { log.warn("in what universe is this clearer than a simple if == null statement?!"); });