I agree, but like I said it's not enough for me to switch. I use Optional<T> whenever I need to return null. The only outlier there is the JDK which most devs should know when it's returning null to you.

isn’t optional just replacing the null check with if(optionalRef.isPresent)??

i kinda get how this is safer, but clients can just call optionalRef.get() without checking, and boom there goes the safety. compiler warnings be damned.

Optional is just signaling to the user that they should check.

You could also do this in Kotlin and boom there goes the safety:

  fn nonNull(): String {
    val s: String? = null
    return !!s
  }