Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/memoizr/retro-optional

README.md

@@ -1,2 +1,40 @@
-# retro-optional
-A backport of Java8 optionals for Java7
+## Retro-Optional
+A backport of Java8 monad optionals for Java7.
+
+Example:
+
+Let's say we have an instance of a class `A` which can be nullable, and we're interested in getting the
+result of a chain of nested function calls, which eventually will result in a `boolean`. Every intermediate
+step may fail and return a null. To get to the end result without optionals we'd have to do multiple
+null checks:
+
+```java
+boolean result = a != null &&
+      a.getB() != null &&
+      a.getB().getC() != null &&
+      a.getB().getC().isD();
+```
+But by converting everything to return monadic optionals, the syntax can be streamlined a bit:
+```java
+boolean result = a.flatMap(A::getB)
+      .flatMap(A::getC)
+      .filter(x -> x.isD())
+      .isPresent();
+```
+For more examples of how to use Java 8 optional types, you can refer to this excellent article:
+http://www.nurkiewicz.com/2013/08/optional-in-java-8-cheat-sheet.html
+
+## Get it
+```groovy
+ repositories {
+        // ...
+        maven { url "https://jitpack.io" }
+  }
+```
+```groovy
+ dependencies {
+        compile 'com.github.memoizr:retro-optional:0.1.0'
+  }
+```
+
+