A great read for folks wondering why Java uses type erasure instead of “reified” generics. For the unaware, that means that a List<Integer> is a List<Object> at runtime. I had always wondered about it and why they didn’t take the alternative route. For context, C# does have reified types so the actual type parameter is available at runtime.
I personally love reading in depth discussions about counter intuitive engineering decisions like this.
Yeah, this quote pretty much sums it up
Which tells me that it was mostly about maintaing backwards compatibility with legacy code. Having used C# and Java for years the effect of type erasure seems to be bunch of silly
@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")annotations in code and classes that mostly just exist to encapsulate a list of objects. With C# I create my own generics all the time but with Java I tend to avoid doing that like a plague.I do however have to admit that I skimmed through most of the article because it’s just too difficult to read with its complex vocabulary (full of words like pragmatic, ubiquitous, fictions, heterogeneous, etc) combined with a lot of technical jargon about lower level languages. Guess reading and actually really understanding the article would be easier and less time consuming if I was native english speaker but at its current form the article is far from being accessible or succesful explaining why one should love type-erasure.