title: How to best create a Java 8 stream from a nullable object?
body: <p>What is the best/idiomatic way of doing a null check before getting a stream?</p>
  
  <p>I have method that is receiving a <code>List</code> that might be null. So I can't just call <code>.stream()</code> on the passed in value. Is there some static helper in that would give me an empty stream if a value is null?</p>