# 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:** 7

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**Author:** ![HFriberg-mosek](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/hfriberg-mosek/32/8376_2.png) [@HFriberg-mosek](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/HFriberg-mosek)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 11:37am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/why-cant-we-merge-missing-and-nothing/25793/7 "2019-06-28T11:37:29Z")

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> [@HFriberg-mosek](#):
>
> My (perhaps naive) take on it was that perhaps it should not be the type, but the way you use it, that determines whether it behaved as `Nothing` or `Missing`. Just like you have `skipmissing` to tell how `Missing` should be treated.

Nahh, scratch that. I would rather have the caller actively choosing whether something should behave like `Nothing` or `Missing`. Transferring this choice of interpretation to the callee sounds like trouble. The type is a contract.

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