[heavenlyblue]

I would add: the reason it is a issue in C++ is because the algebra around pointers doesn’t support the NULLs explicitly:

  - the results of any operations over nulls run as if the pointer were not null
  - while anyhing you do in SQL with NULL would explicitly have a mapping to either a correct value or another NULL

This is all said knowing that it’s quite easy to understand why is that the case.