Why Maybe Is Better Than Null
Nick Knowlson (via Tim Wood):
Maybe, at its core, is a construct that allows programmers to move null checks into the type system, so they can be enforced at compile-time. Instead of forgetting to deal with a null check and finding out with an exception at run-time, you forget to deal with a null check and find out with an error at compile-time, before anyone else even sees it! And that’s not just some null checks, that’s all of them!
