On: Ask HN: Go programming language is over ten years ...

[Mr_T_]

> They spent almost 10 years saying "we don't need generics", but now are implementing it

You're making things up. Not a single member of the Go team ever said "we don't need generics". In fact, the FAQ stated from day one that they "continue to think about it", and that "Generics may well be added at some point".

[vram22 → Mr_T_]

Yes. IIRC, Rob Pike or someone else on the Go team even said something like "it's hard, so we are taking our time about it, may implement it later". Edit: see [1] below.

Also googled and found this:

http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4554

which includes this section:

Go might have generics in future

with this text:

The Go FAQ recognizes the issue and says that generics may be added at some point... http://golang.org/doc/go_faq.html#generics

Considering how Java generics turned out I am fine with the Go team taking the time to think about a proper design for generics in Go :-)

By ted stockwell at Tue, 2012-06-26 15:03

[1] The golang.org link above about generics also says this:

We haven't yet found a design that gives value proportionate to the complexity, although we continue to think about it.

[tsimionescu → Mr_T_]

They've always also said "show us some compelling use cases", as if those still need to be shown ~15 years after after every other language except C got them.

[cma → tsimionescu]

C has the preprocessor at least, reducing the need for them.

[sabellito → Mr_T_]

Ah, I stand corrected.