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APPLIED DESIGN PAT T ERNS

Why You Need Null Objects

Let me tell you why this weird pseudo null-object is so great
Nicklas Millard Follow
Jun 11 · 4 min read

So, I wrote this piece “Stop Checking for Nulls” and it took some heat
from a few developers doubting the NOP’s usefulness. I figured I’d take
some time and provide additional examples.

Stop Checking for Nulls

Null Object Pattern, Factory Methods — Let’s see some production ready
code!
medium.com

For those who didn’t read the previous article and still don’t know what a
Null Object is, here’s a simple explanation.

The main purpose is to return a suitable substitute

for a null. The Null Object simply allows for more
expressive code.

Let’s have a look at some examples when the Null Object is more
expressive than just using nulls that’d easily wreck your application.

1 Lying method signatures

A method signature may lie about what it does in two ways: 1) the return
type, and 2) the method name is incorrect.

We’d often see something like this in a repository. Without the null-
object, the problem with this one line of code is that it’s lying about what
it returns and what it does.

Reading this code tells me I can always, as in, always, count on receiving
an Author type. But that’s not true, because some junior developer might
allow it to return null.

What to do instead
If you don’t want to apply the null pattern, instead write code that
actually tells you want to expect from it. The method signature about
would need to be changed to the signature below.

You see the question mark after Author, and the name now includes
“Default”? Now we know we’d possibly end up with a null calling this
method.

2 Expressing the absence of a value

Null would probably mean “there’s no value”. But, we can be more
expressive than that, can’t we?

When performing a query, you can communicate the absence of a value

by returning an Author.Unknown type. It’s just as easy to check for as a
null, but it also allows you to pass it on if you’d want to. The object would
have very predictive behavior: it’d do nothing.

3 Explicitly tell if something went wrong

Using factories or factory methods, you’re able to return more
specialized objects that allow you to assert if something went wrong.

It’s not always you’d want to throw exceptions. As you’re obviously very
aware of, exceptions should only ever be thrown if something
exceptional happened.

Providing incorrect input to a method is often not very exceptional. It’s

common. We allow for these commonalities by returning a null object
that represents something went wrong.

What the critics say

Switch to another language with null-safety
That’s not always an option. Often times we’re not in total control of
which language we’re allowed to use. Some clients demand us to use C#,
Java, JavaScript, etc.

The Null Object Pattern is confusing

It’s less confusing than returning null if nothing is found. I wouldn’t
know if the null represents a missing value or if something went wrong.
At least returning a null object named something like “Unknown” tells us
what we looked for couldn’t be found.

This Pattern is Old

So is MVC, MVVM, State Pattern, Repository Pattern, and pretty much
every pattern in The Gang of Four’s Design Patterns.

Even the languages we use are old. Python is from 1990. Java is from
1995. Yeah, that’s right. Python is even more old school than Java. But
we still use them.

This Pattern is Obsolete

It’s still being applied in green field projects because it elegantly solves an
issue. There’s nothing obsolete about NOP.

It’s hiding errors

Well — As I’ve demonstrated above, it’s actually bringing errors right in
front of you, easily detected and debugged.

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WRIT T EN BY
Nicklas Millard Follow

Senior Tech Consultant with an opinion. Sharing what I learn

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