you should know better than the compiler slightly smiling fa

Question

you should know better than the compiler slightly smiling face

jkbbwr · Answer

No you shouldn t compilers are better at problem solving than humans when the problem is defined properly

karelpeeters · Answer

Something something dynamically typed languages stuck out tongue

bod · Answer

A compiler is a very basic tool The human brain of a developer is smarter Jetbrains knew this when they specified Kotlin and decided ` ` would be useful slightly smiling face

bod · Answer

Same with annotations or other mechanisms that allow to ignore warnings Because a developer is smarter than a static analysis tool

Shawn · Answer

just because the compiler generate warnings that aren t appropriate in 100 of all edge cases doesn t mean developers are smarter

Shawn · Answer

humans make plenty of mistakes and misinterpret things literally all the time

Shawn · Answer

really smarter isn t a useful term here since it implies we re talking about more general purpose kind of intelligence in a restricted domain with a properly defined problem space crazy example compiling a programming language the machine will get it wrong far less than the person will

cedric · Answer

Even if occasionally I know for sure something can t be `null` but the compiler doesn t I ll throw in a `null` test `else` throw some exception

karelpeeters · Answer

That s basically the same as ` ` though

cedric · Answer

Except I can make the exception more meaningful

cedric · Answer

If I feel really confident I ll just ` let nonNullableVal`

cedric · Answer

but I m always a bit wary of ` let` because it s an `if` without an `else` and this has the potential to hide bugs

groostav · Answer

we ve got a couple of objects on our code base that are used in such a way where they may have nullable fields and then at some point our business logic means that those fields cant be null most of the time similar to cerdric I ll throw a `require we someProp = null msg with domain significance ` infront of the methods in question validation on a POJO data class seems to be a pretty obvious example If you ve got a validator and a service that expects only objects passed by the validator and you dont want to map from a nullable POJO to a non nullable one your service is likely to be implemented with some `pojo someProperty `

gildor · Answer

`require we someProp = null ` gt `requireNotNull we someProp `

bod · Answer

Regardless of what smart means really my point was that I don t think ` ` should be considered a code smell slightly smiling face Sometimes you just know with 100 certainty that a variable cannot be null and testing its nullity will add noise and possible confusion to the code that s when ` ` does absolutely make sense and should be encouraged slightly smiling face Well that s my personal opinion about it anyway and I can understand if some people disagree slightly smiling face