Java is a language where nullable types aren't truthy/falsy. The following code won't compile:

  String foo = null;
  if (foo) {  // error: incompatible types: String cannot be converted to boolean
      System.out.println("was true");
  } else {
      System.out.println("was false");
  }

If one changes `if (foo)` to `if (foo != null)`, then the code will compile.