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Safety is a feature and that null check prevents bugs. I'd rather have slow but safe code rather than fast but buggy code.

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If the null check silently ignores the attempt to remove a non-existent item from the list, then the null check did not prevent a bug, it merely hid it.

IMO, even though this is C, the Zen of Python still applies, which states:

> Errors should never pass silently unless explicitly silenced.

Its the caller with the bug, not the library code.

Can we all at least agree that if the language could express non-nullable pointers, we'd all be better off? (Something like `Option<T>` in Rust, or Swift's `?` sugar for their `Optional`, etc etc)

Then the type of the function would just declare a that the pointer can't be null, and code which sends a nullable pointer would refuse to compile.

Adding checks creates more code branches and tests. Passing null in is the bug.

Can you show it has any impact on benchmarks? This is something speculative execution should take care of that quickly?

"Premature optimization.... " you get the drift.

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