Meme transcription: Panel 1. Two images of JSON, one is the empty object, one is an object in which the key name maps to the value null. Caption: “Corporate needs you to find the difference between this picture and this picture”

Panel 2. The Java backend dev answers, “They’re the same picture.”

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Billion dollar mistake

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 months ago (1 children)

For those who don’t know:

Speaking at a software conference in 2009, Tony Hoare hyperbolically apologized for "inventing" the null reference:[26] [27]

I call it my billion-dollar mistake. It was the invention of the null reference in 1965. At that time, I was designing the first comprehensive type system for references in an object oriented language (ALGOL W). My goal was to ensure that all use of references should be absolutely safe, with checking performed automatically by the compiler. But I couldn't resist the temptation to put in a null reference, simply because it was so easy to implement. This has led to innumerable errors, vulnerabilities, and system crashes, which have probably caused a billion dollars of pain and damage in the last forty years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Huh, so Tony Hoare invented null and then Graydon Hoare invented Rust, ~~immediately terminating the existence of null~~ which does not have a traditional null value.