Open your console and type:
typeof null
You'll get:
'object'
That's wrong—null is not an object!
🔍 How did this happen?
When JavaScript was first implemented, values were stored in a tagged format, where the lower bits determined the type:
-
Objects had a type tag of 0. -
null was stored as 0 in memory. Since
null had 0 in its type tag, typeof mistakenly classified it as an "object". 🔧 Why isn't it fixed?
One word: Backward compatibility.
Fixing it would break too many apps, so it's here to stay!
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