I am just wondering why Java 7 switch statement does not support null case and instead throws NPE ?
see commented line below (example taken from http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/nutsandbolts/switch.html )

 switch (month) {
 case "january":
 monthNumber = 1;
 break;
 case "february":
 monthNumber = 2;
 break;
 case "march":
 monthNumber = 3;
 break;
 //case null:
 default: 
 monthNumber = 0;
 break;
 }

 return monthNumber;
 }

This would have avoided an `if` condition from every `switch` use