Comment by fc417fc802

I feel like that example doesn't fit except in the specific case that the language designer restricts the usage of null in a way that reduces the overall expressiveness and power of the language. Whereas (but one example) the operators provided by Kotlin don't do that.

Obviously how exactly you structure a particular end result is going to involve lots of fuzzy tradeoffs. My point wasn't about such nuance but rather the sort of reasoning that leads the the dismissal of an entire feature (in this case proper macros) on the basis of saving developers from themselves.

There should be (at least IMO) a clear delineation between a language design that makes it possible to do things in a sensible manner versus the realm of style guides, linters, and pre-commit hooks that enforce restrictions intended to maintain sanity on large projects. I shouldn't feel compelled due to deficiencies in the design of the language to reach for constructs like goto but those constructs should still be there if I have a need for them. People shouldn't feel compelled to waste time patching their tools to work around the opinions of the designers being forced on them. [1][2]

That said, it would be nice if compilers themselves universally provided native linting facilities, possibly even enabled by default.

[1] https://github.com/kstenerud/go

[2] https://github.com/tpope/heroku-fucking-console