Java 8 Optional. ¿De verdad hacía falta?

Java 8 Optional

¿De verdad hacía falta una API para tratar nulos?

Me surgen las siguientes dudas.

  • ¿Desde cuando tratar con valores nulos dentro de un programa se convirtió en un problema? 
  • ¿Es el temido NullPointerException realmente un problema del lenguage o del programa?
  • ¿Esta el Optional realmente simplificando la lógica del programa?
  • ¿Esta el Optional realmente ayudando a diseñar un programa más robusto?
  • ¿Esta el Optional realmente resolviendo el problema original?


 Hasta donde yo he podido llegar, no veo ninguna aportación ni a la programación ni al lenguaje el uso del Optional de Java 8. De hecho, lo que si he podido llegar a ver ha sido justamente lo contrario. Donde antes veía simples if ahora veo sobre-ingeniería, e incluyo utilización de APIs adicionales para tratar con los tales Optional. Después de ver esto, esto es tal y como yo lo veo:

  • La programación es un arte y por lo tanto el tratamiento de nulos también lo es.
  • El Optional es sencillamente más verbose que escribir directamente una sentencia if
  • Decorar o enmascarar un nulo no simplifica la lógica del programa
  • La robusteza de un programa no se gana añadiendo más capas
  • En Java ya existen mecanismos como el try-catch para tratar errores inesperados
  • El uso de lambdas no ahorra código y no justifica la utilización de tal API


 Para terminar, creo que no habrá ningún framework que vaya a solucionar lo que para mi son errores de programación, ni hacer un programa más robusto por arte de magia; con Optional o sin Optional, seguirán habiendo NullPointerException con total seguridad; de hecho la susodicha API los lanza. Sin embargo, si google y Java han diseñado tales APIs para tratar nulos, la pregunta que realmente que me queda es: 

  • ¿Qué me estoy perdiendo y donde están los ejemplos reales que justifiquen el diseño y la utilización de semejante API?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Android 3D Model Viewer Open Source

So finally I decided to publish my 3D model Viewer android app on the Google Play Market :) This app is about drawing 3D objects in android using OpenGL ES 2.0; and its Open Source as my other projects, so people can either contribute, start a similar project based on that or just learn how to do it by looking at the source code. Although there is already similar apps on the market and lots of 3D frameworks out there, neither of the published apps are Open Source. So I wanted to learn how 3D works and I think the best way to understand how it works is by looking at how matrices transforms the objects in space and how pixels are drawn to the screen. Thats why this app does not use any third party framework. So far the app serves as a model viewer, but I have some ideas of what can be done with the code; or as I prefer to think of it, mini-3D-framework.  So for example, I am thinking in creating my very first and simple mini-game and I want to do it in 3D as it is a matter I real
Read more

Java 9 Process API

Java 9 will come with interesting features . Here is a quick review of the new Java 9 Process API. Use Cases for the Java Process API These are probably some ways how we are using the Java Process API: To Install, configure or to communicate to other programs from Java: For example, I implemented a Java Installer to install the WebSphere Application Server into the system, and then I configure it by running a script coded in Jython executed the wsadmin tool. To install specific Operating System stuff. I didn’t find any other simpler way to install Windows start menu items from Java other than by doing it in a VBScript program. In my opinion, the Java Process API is in general used to integrate Java with other programs or processes. For example. I made a game in Blender and I implemented a launcher in Java. So, from Java I am calling the blender.exe passing the game.blender file as argument. Known Problems and Workarounds There are common issues in Windows when in
Read more

How to build a replicated ehcache through firewall and not to die trying

It's assumed that: You already have a java application and you have an ehcache instance running in your program with 1 cache configured to replicate. You want to connect 1 instance to another instance you have in a remote machine The remote machine you are connecting to is located behind a firewall. You have been given access to only 1 port to make an ssh connection to the remote (firewalled) machine. Ehcache uses RMI to connect the remote instances. When the cache in host 1 tries to connect to cache in host 2, RMI opens a new server socket in host 1 to listen for incoming connections from the host 2. The problem here is that these random ports are not accesible to remote hosts because the hosts are behind a firewall. So to fix it, we need to configure ehcache to only use 2 ports. The " remoteObjectPort " does the magic. So we have this ehcache.xml configuration: 1 server port for the ehcache server to listen to other ehcache servers. 1 server port for the e
Read more