How does everyone feel about the answer from here I

Question

How does everyone feel about the answer from < yole> here I personally really like using when I want to assert that something is not null at that point

spand · Answer

It provides a shitty debugging experience without any reason for the error

spand · Answer

I try to never use ` ` in my code

marstran · Answer

Using `requireNotNull` expresses intent more clearly

sindrenm · Answer

Agree in avoiding bang bang unless it s a reference to Jessie J Ariana Grandle and Nicki Minaj `requireNotNull` and `checkNotNull` express intent more clearly or when it makes sense just using `if`s with smart casting sunglasses

Burkhard · Answer

The one place i use ` ` is to tell kotlin that a platform type is not null e g `someJavaCall `

elizarov · Answer

I read ` ` as require not null

Colton Idle · Answer

< elizarov> thoughts on this post gt Donn walks through why Kotlin s Not Null Assertion Operator is a code smell and what you can do to alleviate it

elizarov · Answer

Have not listened to it Is there a transcription available

Colton Idle · Answer

Unfortunately not sob

cedric · Answer

The podcast basically says never to use ` ` except maybe in tests

cedric · Answer

I think it s a bit too strong there are cases even in production code where things should absolutely never be `null` e g a configuration file should be part of the distribution Your app is going to crash if that thing is `null` so it s all a matter of how you want to crash

Colton Idle · Answer

Yeah < cedric> personally I prefer to crash if I know it should never be null but it sounds like the podcast author uses some other techniques but I haven t found anything as easy to use as

elizarov · Answer

You can use ` error This should not happen ` I guess a project might have a policy to provide a better message that includes a context in this case That would be a material improvement over ` ` Without additional context in a message I see no benefit in writing longer code though

sindrenm · Answer

The better error part here is also a reason why I prefer `requireNotNull` `checkNotNull` over ` ` +1

spand · Answer

How do you remember which is which

sindrenm · Answer

`require` vs `check` I don t know I guess I just remember that `require` is in the context of arguments where `check` is in the context of state but I m not sure why stuck out tongue

Colton Idle · Answer

< sindrenm> I tried to just do a requireNotNull check but it didn t do anything because my value was mutable so I still had to use or in line when accessing the variable

sindrenm · Answer

`requireNotNull lt T gt ` returns the `T` non nullable so you could potentially do this ``` val value = requireNotNull nullableValue use value henceforth ```

sindrenm · Answer

Or you could also inline the `requireNotNull value ` calls to wherever you re accessing `value` but I often find it nicer to just put it in a local `val` and be done with it