4 ms·

This is not a very useful thing to say. Macros have nothing to do with generics.

• dagss 8y ago
  ...except that both can be applied to solve the same problems. And so they are in fact very related. For instance with a macro you could do (made up syntax) SortIntSlice = mymacros.MakeSorter!(int) ...then at compile time have code for sorting a slice of ints generated. This is again similar to C++ templates (main difference is C++ will implicitly instantiate instead of explicitly). And C++ doesn't need generocs because people use templates instead. They really are in the same problem domain.
  • djur 8y ago
    Using macros to implement generics has the same problem that C++ templates have, which is described in the Go 2 generics proposal: it's difficult to provide clear error messages for developers in many cases. Functions parameterized on a single type are the easy problem to solve. Where things get thorny is when you parameterize on multiple types with various constraints and/or have some kind of interaction in the function body. The goal of the Go 2 generics contracts (and C++ concepts, Haskell typeclasses, Rust traits, etc.) is to make those expectations explicit.
    • slavapestov 8y ago
      Macros and C++ templates are also incompatible with separate compilation which leads to increased compile times and binary bloat.