this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2025
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[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

So in a language with nullable types, are you against a boolean ever being nullable? Null means "empty, missing info". Let's say we have role variable with a enum type of possible roles. It could still reasonably be nullable, because in some scenarios you don't know the role yet, like before log in.

In any use case where we need to store some boolean, it's a common occurrence that we don't have the data and it's null. It would be overkill to use an enum with True, False, NoData for these cases, where there is already a language feature made just for that, nullable values.

I've never used TypeScript, just writing from experience in other languages.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Yeah, but if it is about being an admin or not, hence the bool, it’d be idiomatic and reasonable to assume it to be false if we have no data. Unless we want to try and allow admin access based on no data. Having three states for a simple binary state is weird. And if it is not about just being an admin or not, the bool is inherently a too limited choice for representation.

[–] dev_null@lemmy.ml 1 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago) (1 children)

Depends on your requirements.

If the admin status needs to be checked in a database, but most actions don't require authentication at all, it's pointless to waste resources checking and it would be left null until the first action that needs the information checks it and fills it in as true or false.

[–] orgrinrt@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

I don’t really follow you there, wouldn’t it be exactly the opposite and wouldn’t checking for nulls be, as a premise, more wasteful? But doesn’t really matter, time to digress. I’m conventionally educated as an engineer so what I know and find reasonable today might be outdated and too strict for most contemporary stuff.