How does scala make this more confusing?

Either the types that are returned are scala collections, or they're java collections. If you want to treat java collections like scala collections you can always `import JavaConversions._` and huzzah, shallow conversions and collection uniformity.

Finally, if something has the possibility of being null, you can use the option construct, e.g.

    if (Option(someListThatMightBeNull).getOrElse(List()).isEmpty) { ... }

Or more likely:

    Option(someListThatMightBeNull) match {
        case Some(list) => // do something...
        case None => // do something else...
    }

More than likely if you're dealing with scala libs, things that can be "null" are returning options anyway.