Stéphane Ducasse wrote
Now a question, I tried to write a comment for and I was wondering why not returning '' instead of nil in string.
Ten years after your question, I stumbled upon a SO answer [1] that seems to explain this behavior. Apparently `string` returns a string-like object *that retains tree navigation ability* e.g. sibling, parent, where `text` returns a bare string. From this perspective, `nil` seems appropriate to indicate that such a navigable object was not available. That said, it certainly can make the library harder to deal with. What about a Null Object Pattern that returns an object polymorphic with SoupString and that implements appropriate no-ops? 1. https://stackoverflow.com/a/25328374 ----- Cheers, Sean -- Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Developers-f1294837.html