Timothy Lochner

I get sceptical when someone say that "C++ References ... Cannot be NULL".

better to say they "should" not be null. A pointer, however, null is a valid, expectable value.

I like to treat refs as "never null" because of the expectation. But when debugging, always be ready for a null ref.

it then makes a good way to communicate existence. If my function returns a pointer, check it first. If ref, no check.

if my function returns a ref and it is null, hunt me down and demand recommence for my idiocy.