Summary
This Developer South Coast session explores the surprisingly complex concept of “nothing” in software development. From null values and NaN to empty strings and database nulls, the talk unpacks the subtle but important distinctions between absence, emptiness, and zero.
Guest Speakers
About this event
Ever since zero became something for nothing, you'd think we'd solved nothing. Whether we're talking NaN, string.Empty, nullables or database nulls, it turns out that nothing is more surprising than nothing. There is a distinction between a number that is zero — and the many ways we have of representing that number — and the absence of a thing, as well as a distinction between absence and emptiness. These distinctions have both practical and conceptual consequences that lead to surprises in code, in UX, in .NET and beyond. There a number of things to learn in this talk about nothing.
Kevlin Henney is a renowned keynote speaker, independent software developer, consultant, trainer, technologist and writer.
Date and time
Thu
09
Jul, 2026
08:39 am
Location
Avenue St Andrew's URC, The Avenue, Southampton
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