Although I do not think this will seriously impact the quality of the code being produced, I still believe it will not help making code of a better quality. Check for the nil value should be banned in my opinion. There are well-known techniques to not have to use it (e.g., Null-object pattern).

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Alexandre Bergel http://www.bergel.eu
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On May 20, 2015, at 3:19 PM, Aliaksei Syrel <alex.syrel@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

Null coalesce operator - returns the first not nil operand.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_coalescing_operator

Adding one simple method to an Object:

?? anObject
^ self

and to UndefinedObject:

?? anObject
^ anObject

could allow us to write:

default1 := nil.
default2 := nil.
default3 := 'foo'.
default4 := 'don''t care'.
config := default1 ?? default2 ?? default3 ?? default4.

=> 'foo'

I know you don't like to add new methods to an object, but still :)