title: What's the purpose of the empty string?
body: <p>To me, as a developer and as a user, I find the empty string (&quot;&quot;) useless and the cause of much confusion, it's like saying string == char[]</p>
  <p>Maybe computers need the empty string, so I'd like to learn why.</p>
  <blockquote>
  <h3>See also:</h3>
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/265875/default-string-initialization-null-or-empty">Default string initialization: NULL or Empty?</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1626597/best-practice-should-functions-return-null-or-an-empty-object">Best Practice: Should functions return null or an empty object?</a></li>
  </ul>
  </blockquote>