I think you're mixing up the NULL pointer and the NULL (sometimes NUL) character.

Python is interpreted so None is always tested for and will throw an exception if used in the wrong context. This is quite different from a SEGVIO.

> But IMO having a “there is no value here” designation is not a bad thing.

Sure ... if it's done via the type system so that errors are caught at compile time. There's a reason that modern languages all either do this or are moving towards doing it. (And a reason that C programmers have no idea what we're talking about when we refer to type systems.)

> NULL in C just doesn’t belong at the end of a string.

Different discussion. (And NUL, not NULL.)