alt Hacker News`Option<String>` or `Result<String>` forces the check at the callsite. Unlike C, you cannot forget that the function can error. This absolutely helps prevent issues like this.
Now, the decision to return `"*"` instead of letting poorly written code crash on `NULL` is not good either.
I don't think it's that people forget it while writing the code, it's that people want their program to work with as little effort as possible and decide to ignore it "for now". And that definitely can happen with Option and Result as well. There's no protection for not checking return values, and it's probably not even possible to protect against (in entirety)