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I asked this same question on reddit. And I am not trying to be snarky. I have programmed a long time and I cannot think of a single time where I thought, "this

I asked this same question on reddit. And I am not trying to be snarky. I have programmed a long time and I cannot think of a single time where I thought, "this would be easier with generics." Where is the list of problems that are easier to solve with generics?

andreasgonewild 9y ago
You don't mention your level of experience with generic type systems, but I find it's mostly the case that I can't imagine any use for techniques I'm not yet familiar with. Here is a random example from my recent adventures, a channel implementation in C++ which uses generics to provide value-semantics for user-specified message types: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src/snackis/core/chan.hpp https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src... And here is a column class that uses generics to inject both record type and value type into the implementation: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src/snackis/db/col.hpp https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src... Doing any of these without generics would mean either erasing types or writing duplicate code. Go provides generic channels, slices and maps; but it doesn't extend that power to user-code since users are supposedly not smart enough to be trusted with power.
nine_k 9y ago
Channels, maps, and arrays are generic in Go. They solve a lot if key problems. The problem is that you can't create your own generic structure. Try building a statically type-safe red-black tree, or something like that, without copy-pastig the implementation for each new node data type. Higher-order functions are also basically impossible.
- masklinn 9y ago
  > Channels, maps, and arrays are generic in Go. Pointers and slices as well, and of course the various builtin operators or functions used to work on them (make, range, len, close, …).

andreasgonewild 9y ago

You don't mention your level of experience with generic type systems, but I find it's mostly the case that I can't imagine any use for techniques I'm not yet familiar with. Here is a random example from my recent adventures, a channel implementation in C++ which uses generics to provide value-semantics for user-specified message types: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src/snackis/core/chan.hpp https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src... And here is a column class that uses generics to inject both record type and value type into the implementation: https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src/snackis/db/col.hpp https://github.com/andreas-gone-wild/snackis/blob/master/src... Doing any of these without generics would mean either erasing types or writing duplicate code. Go provides generic channels, slices and maps; but it doesn't extend that power to user-code since users are supposedly not smart enough to be trusted with power.

nine_k 9y ago

Channels, maps, and arrays are generic in Go. They solve a lot if key problems. The problem is that you can't create your own generic structure. Try building a statically type-safe red-black tree, or something like that, without copy-pastig the implementation for each new node data type. Higher-order functions are also basically impossible.

masklinn 9y ago
> Channels, maps, and arrays are generic in Go. Pointers and slices as well, and of course the various builtin operators or functions used to work on them (make, range, len, close, …).