[rbolkey]

Have to agree here. The article's use of Optional is well intentioned, but shows use of the construct in a way that it was not intended. It should be used minimally, and only as a return value to signify the absence of a value. When you notice that Optional is not serializable, this starts to sink in.

Here are some more thorough treatments: http://stackoverflow.com/a/23464794 http://blog.jhades.org/java-8-how-to-use-optional/