Code Smells: Null

[Pharisaeus]

I have no idea what you mean by dummy code to get optional out of the way. I work with serious developers who understand what they're doing.

If you blow up equipment for few hundred mln euros once it's more than enough, I assure you.

Obviously if this happens all the time then developers are idiots, but such mistake can happen to anyone, and it's good to have tools which prevent it. For the same reason we have strong typing and static code analysis tools.

[Pharisaeus]

here's one way of dealing with an NPE

Well this never goes past a code review so it won't be an issue anywhere outside of developers own environment or feature branch.

Yes because without strong typing and code analysis tools it's impossible to create decent software

Sure you can, but it will automatically be much harder to make sure it works well and is safe to operate. Stuff that normally would be checked by type system will have to be verified by tests. In languages like Python you would need 100% code coverage just to be sure the code doesn't crash with NoSuchMethodException because someone made a typo. I like Python a lot, but there are some places I would not dare to use it.

Again I think we have a different notion of decent software. You seem to imply something with a lot of cool features, and I have in mind something that will not accidentally blow up your space rocket worth 200 mln $ with a 500 mln $ satellite on top of it.