[Mono-list] How do I reference generic classes in C#???

Chris Howie cdhowie at gmail.com
Sun Jan 11 23:49:39 EST 2009


On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 2:07 AM, Luke B <muchomuse at gmail.com> wrote:
> Huh. Yeah, I don't really know the history of Generics in each language. I'm
> assuming there's value in the .NET model, but I still find the Java model
> more intuitive to program in. The reason is that I think of Generics as
> something that are "contained" in a class, while being separate of the
> class. So something like:
> Mug<Cocoa> yourdrink = new Mug<Cocoa>();
> Mug<Coffee> mydrink = new Mug<Coffee>();
> Mug.topology = Doughnut;
> makes more sense, I the general shape of all Mugs shouldn't be dependent on
> what liquid they contain. I can see the value of the dotnet approach too,
> but its just simply less intuitive.

I disagree entirely, and I was a Java developer long before I learned
C#.  I find the Java system incredible mind-bending and the only
difficulty I had transitioning to the .NET model of generics was
unlearning the Java model (which was a joy).  There is nothing worse
than enforcing the use of .equals and friends over what should
effectively be primitive types, but are actually objects.  And, of
course, there's the memory footprint you create by boxing primitives
for no good reason.

What you're specifying there, by the way, actually doesn't even make
sense since data like that would be better exposed in a property (or
getter method, if we're talking Java) since it's not something you
would expect to be able to set about all Mugs that exist in an
application all at once.

-- 
Chris Howie
http://www.chrishowie.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers


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