I'm traveling, so can't properly expand on what I said, but without generics the choice was: - repeat unnecessary bolierplate code for every single return type

I'm traveling, so can't properly expand on what I said, but without generics the choice was: - repeat unnecessary bolierplate code for every single return type - skip types completely and use a function that accepts interface{} as a parameter and assigns whatever to that variable Neither are really acceptable in my opinion. And both will be greatly simplified and improved by generics.