I will never use Java's Optional. I'm baffled why it even exists. Further, I remain unclear on the value (haha) of the @Nullable and @NotNull annotations. If it's not baked into the language, why bother?

I've been using NullObject since (checking...) 1996. This is The Correct Answer.

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?NullObject

I first read about NullObject here:

Object-Oriented Design Heuristics http://amzn.to/1ND1YSU

What'd be really neat is some mojo to remove the boilerplate of implementing NullObjects.