Taming the Billion Dollar Mistake: Maarten Balliauw's Guide to C# Nullable Reference Types

Maarten Balliauw presents a practical guide to migrating C# codebases to nullable reference types, a compile-time safety feature introduced in C# 8. The session covers migration strategies like the Boy Scout Rule (enabling nullability file-by-file), warns against overusing the null-forgiving operator, and addresses gotchas like Entity Framework Core's automatic schema updates. The approach emphasizes gradual adoption starting from central classes with few dependencies, using IDE tools for flow analysis, and accepting null as part of the codebase rather than trying to eliminate it entirely.