using an object before checking if it is null makes baby jesus cry.
c’mon people check your return value

better yet:

1. Before you start writing a method, decide whether it will ever return null. Document this decision in the @return section of the method’s Javadoc.
2. Never have a method return null unless there’s a really good reason for it.
3. If your method returns an array or a collection, there’s no reason to ever return null. Return an empty array or collection instead.
4. If you have a situation where null is a valid value for a variable, you can make use of the Introduce Null Object refactoring, to make the behaviour explicit.

Read more here.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 15th, 2003 at 11:57 am and is filed under Hacker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.