Hi,

http://www.smalltalkchronicles.net/edition2-1/null_object_pattern.htm

I got fed up with all the ifNil:.... tests in my domain code today, so  
based on my excellent experiences with using the 'message eating null'  
pattern in previous projects (with VW), I decided to add this thing to my  
toolkit.

However, to my disappointment I found that #ifNil: and friends are  
optimized by the compiler, so there's no way to override them (they're  
compiled to '== nil' and a jump).

Is there a way to circumvent this? It really is a very useful thing to  
have, it cleans up code in your domain layer tremendously.

(the only solution I could think of is changing the compiler and  
recompiling the system. hardly attractive...)