> Java didn't have generics until version 5 in 2004; the ML family had it in 1990.
I thought Standard ML had it in the 70's (!)
I thought Standard ML had it in the 70's (!)
It's a bit sad that the foundations of modern programming languages were basically known by 1975 (either via Standard ML or Scheme) but the majority of languages in common use (mostly of a 1990s vintage) didn't learn those lessons. Thankfully that seems to be changing with more recent languages (Go being the exception).
Having researched a bit in the 60's and 70's systems programming languages, I would assert that the same issues with Go apply to C (language design vs existing competition), and they only got lucky because Bell Labs was forbidden to profit from UNIX.