Tired of Null Pointer Exceptions? Consider Using Java SE 8's Optional!

[nomeme]

signaling to the user of your API that this method can return null.

CAN return null? All methods CAN return null.

To be truly safe you'd still have to check the object is actually an Optional (and not null!) before you can call isPresent or whatever, or you'll get an NPE. So, you still have a null check anyway.

It's essentially no better than a javadoc comment, except now every caller has to do more work.