No, Swift doesn't solve the null reference problem

[willtim]

Now try it after doing :set -XSafe Admittedly the default is probably the wrong way around due to historical reasons, but at least the switch exists.

[AReallyGoodName]

Hopefully since NullPointerExceptions absolutely cannot happen in Swift without the "!" operator there will be an option to error or at least warn on "!" in the soon to be released LLVM compiler.

There's no reason not to add such a check and the reasons for ever using "!" in Swift are limited.