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I am not able to understand the point of Option[T] class in Scala. I mean, I am not able to see any advanages of None over null . For example, consider the code: object Main{ class Person(name: String, var age: int){ def display = println(name+" "+age) } def getPerson1: Person = { // returns a Person instance or null } def getPerson2: Option[Person] = { // returns either Some[Person] or None } def main(argv: Array[String]): Unit = { val p = getPerson1 if (p!=null) p.display getPerson2 match{ case Some(person) => person.display case None => /* Do nothing */ } } } Now suppose, the method getPerson1 returns null , then the call made to display on first line of main is bound to fail with NPE . Similarly if getPerson2 returns None , the display call will again fail with some similar error. If so, then why does Scala complicate things by introducing a new value wrapper ( Option[T] ) instead of following a simple approach used in Java? UPDATE: I have edited my code as per @Mitch 's suggestion. I am still not able to see any particular advantage of Option[T] . I have to test for the exceptional null or None in both cases. :( If I have understood correctly from @Michael's reply , is the only advantage of Option[T] is that it explicitly tells the programmer that this method could return None ? Is this the only reason behind this design choice?

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