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Option Result library for c#
(programming.dev)
A collection of tools for dealing with nulls, failures and the generic type issues that arise in this domain.
https://github.com/Andy3432344/SafeResults
I'm the author, let me know what you think!
*Edit: updated to show GitHub link, sorry!
Nulls are famously called the billion dollar mistake, and for good reason.
Option types are the answer to that problem, because they make the optionality explicit and require one to handle it or propagate it.
That being said: as someone that does functional programming professionally, this looks kinda janky, to me. But the good news is that C# is actually adding support for discriminated unions finally (seriously, it's been waaaay too damn long): https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/blob/18a527bcc1f0bdaf542d8b9a189c50068615b439/proposals%2FTypeUnions.md
With discriminated unions, you can finally comfortably work with Option/Result types natively.
Null pointers are one thing, C# nulls (with nullable reference types enabled) are another. They behave a lot like an Option monad with the caveat that the static analysis can technically be tricked by incorrect hints.
I very much disagree with this, Null Reference Exceptions have been a huge problem in c#. Nullable reference types are a partial fix, but the question of "how do I 'return' an error from a statically typed method" is not answered there.
Are there any updates on DUs in C#? I feel like the linked proposal was opened a decade ago by now.