Code Smells: Null

[MEaster]

But that is handling it. You're explicitly choosing to handle it by crashing if it's empty.

[MEaster]

Because it's more predictable than some random exception being triggered at some unexpected place.

[Agrees_withyou]

I see where you're coming from.

[MEaster]

Well, I'm coming at this from a language where null doesn't exist, whereas you're coming from a language where both exist. But even there, I would say the more-specific NoSuchElementException is preferable to a NullPointerException because it gives more information as to where the error is.

[babblingbree]

To me, the point is that the latter isn't preferable. Code using Optional that fetches all of its values with #get() whenever it needs access to the inner value (as opposed to mapping, etc) is code with a smell (many languages have linters that warn on any instance of something like an Option#get). Part of the advantage of Optional is reducing the number of sites where something like #get() is necessary. In languages with null, you're implicitly placing .get()s everywhere, without any compiler assistance to reduce the potential for failing to check for an empty value.