nil-null-mess in Objective-C and Swift
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All programmers are familiar with the concept of nullability. Whether something exists or not. Whether something is there or not.
Objective-C is very dynamic when it comes to dealing with nullability. All Objective-C programmers are familiar with this phrase:
messages can be sent to nil.
Which means that nil itself can call methods, safely enough, without crashing.
In Swift, we have a bit more safety. We can send “messages” to nil, but only if they are the result of a chained optional. nil can only be a thing when we are working with optionals.