# Why can't we merge Missing and Nothing?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-cant-we-merge-missing-and-nothing/25793>\
**Category:** Internals & Design\
**Created:** [June 28, 2019, 10:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-cant-we-merge-missing-and-nothing/25793 "2019-06-28T10:03:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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**Author:** ![kristoffer.carlsson](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/kristoffer.carlsson/32/22_2.png) [@kristoffer.carlsson](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/kristoffer.carlsson)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 10:55am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-cant-we-merge-missing-and-nothing/25793/2 "2019-06-28T10:55:26Z")

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With `missing` you opt into three valued logic (like you gave as an example). I never want that because it would hide bugs in my code, so I use `nothing`.

The whole `Missing` story could kind of be a package (it used to be) with the exception that it is used in some cases like `find` on arrays which might have missing values and you would need to do type piracy to support that. `Nothing` on the other hand is quite a bit more fundamental and is ingrained much more deeply in the language (even being a part of the iteration protocol) and being the implicit return value.

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