Passing Optional.absent() values to methods concisely

Question

One problem with using Guava\'s Optional type as arguments of methods is that you can\'t simply write

// method declaration
public void foo(Optional         


        

Answer 1

Just when writing the question, I thought of having

public class GuavaConstants {
    @SuppressWarnings( { "raw" })
    public static final Optional ABSENT = Optional.absent();

    // similar for empty ImmutableList, etc.
}

and then the call can look like

@SuppressWarnings( { "unchecked" })
foo(GuavaConstants.ABSENT);

Is there a better approach?