Is it ok to use null checks?

What are your thoughts about explicitly checking for null in Java or other language that allows nulls? There are some alternatives but I don't know what think of it. I read an article recently(linked below), that suggests to throw exceptions, using Optional and other ...
Is there any case that would justify the usage of null checks? I feel like checking for null is bad design but if so, why Java allows it in first place? Please let me know your thoughts.
This article I read says that doing null checks is bad design and I kind of agree with it, I see where is coming from. But so many other devs just say that is BS.
I did work in a company where they had methods with almost 10 parameters and full of null checks, I think that was definitely bad design butt everybody was so obsessed with checking for nulls that I didn't know how to argue against them.
Please let me know your thoughts, I personally like some of the alternatives mentioned in that text.

https://medium.com/javarevisited/avo...s-b3f11afbfcc9

Well C++ allows null pointer (nullptr - 0). If a function returns a pointer then checking for nullptr is valid - and probably needed. The question probably isn't about checking a pointer for nullptr, but rather should a pointer be returned in the first place. Also, there's the situation in passing an optional argument to a function. If an argument is passed via a pointer then it's valid to check that pointer for nullptr to see if an argument has actually been passed or not - which is different to having a default value if an parameter is not specified.

For returning an optional value (or an error value) then returning a pointer in C++ used to be the way - with the caller checking for nullptr. However there's now C++ std::optional for returning an optional value and exceptions for indicating an error has occurred (such as memory error when trying to allocate).

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Originally Posted by n1m_n1

I feel like checking for null is bad design but if so, why Java allows it in first place? Please let me know your thoughts.

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The inventor of the null reference, Tony Hoare, has publicly apologized for it. He calls it his billion-dollar mistake. See this Wikipedia entry (the first paragraph in the Apologies and retractions section)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hoare

It beats me why Java introduced it, and even more so, why they haven't done anything about it? Even the NullPointerException-message itself is a misnomer because there are no pointers in Java.

I don't see how you can avoid every possibility of a NullPointerException sneaking in, not even with the most careful of designs. Not as long as there are people who do the programming. Experienced programmers tend to be defensive. I think they will keep adding safeguards to avoid embarrassing runtime errors in their code. Defensive checking is even considered a good Java idiom by many. Mistakes happen, also in well-designed programs.