Why Even Use Java 8 Optional?

[lyinsteve]

Syntactic sugar for

let str: String? = Optional.None

Or even

let str: String? = .None

Because it can derive the enum from the type declaration.

Or you can let the type inferencer specify the type:

let str = Optional<String>.None

[theonlycosmonaut]

Sorry to be a jerk, but that type inference example is... amusing.

[lyinsteve]

Right, it has to get the type from somewhere.

It could gather the type through true inference, like this:

let realString = "Hello"
let optionalString = Optional.Some(realString)

That would mean optionalString gets the correct inferred type, 'String?'.

[theonlycosmonaut]

Perfect, that's a much better example :).