[modersky]

I think that's a pretty extreme position. First, it will run a lot slower than the pattern matching alternative:

    optional match {
      case Some(x) => whatever(x)
      case None    => fallback
    }

Second, I find the pattern matching code much clearer. Sure, it's also longer, but clarity trumps everything.

[noelwelsh]

map / getOrElse is standard in all the Scala code I've seen. Abstracting over the monad is also a pretty big win that has made some big refactorings painless for me. Pattern matching is really only used by beginners IME.

[modersky]

Well, then maybe the beginners do it right? You have not argued against my two points: It's much slower, and less clear.

[noelwelsh]

Clarity comes from familiarity. It's not an objective measure.

The speed benefit is well known, as is the corollary, premature optimisation. I expect checking for null is even faster if speed is the main concern. It's an engineering tradeoff, just like making the abstraction to a monad (or monad plus). In the normal course of events I'm more concerned about flexibility than performance and would prefer the abstraction.