Weird question: are there any reason why we can’t do (besides current compiler)

val optional: String? = if (someCondition) { "" }

I'm guessing here you'd want

optional

to be null? Seems to me it would be a bit weird cause we're saying not initialized == null

Essentially expression defaults to null if not exhausted.

Because if without else is not an expression, use null as implicit default value doesn't look as good idea for me

For the same reason

val x: String?

doesn't default to

null

. Kotlin is all about being explicit.