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I'm curious, what is not "proper" about Java's erased generics? Reified types also bring other advantages, e.g. runtime reflection can be useful and can enable
by dtech 8y ago
I'm curious, what is not "proper" about Java's erased generics?
Reified types also bring other advantages, e.g. runtime reflection can be useful and can enable meta-programming and allows check binary compatibility of dynamic linking.
So gives that you want a language with reified types, losing that reification with generics creates awkward cases in the languages and prevents possibility for optimization.
- bunderbunder 8y agoThey're not erased all the way, they're only erased down into the root type for all objects. So you've still got some type information left (namely, that it's an Object), and any types that are not Objects are officially banned from the generics system. Hence the need to dress them up as washerwomen and sneak them in through the service entrance.