>I think that'd be a lot of null checks.  It seems like it could add a fair bit of code throughout WebCore, and folks would have to be careful not to forget any null checks.

>EmptyClients seems like a fairly isolated solution, which only requires maintenance when a client interface changes.

>-Darin

 

I had't looked at this issue before  and read the answer before the question but the current solution is

what I thought would be a reasonable approach. In some cases you also need to have many

different types of "null" or instrument your "null" and you have "debug null" etc. Aside from removing

clutter, this moves any "overhead" to just the users of the (fast) null object.  Usually the problem

with zero is that there is only one of them :) You could probably even autogenerate null objects from

headers to save maintenance.