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Comment by mholt | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. To clarify, I'm not suggesting it's either good or bad -- just that it's a big deal. To some, it's controversial.

I personally think Go's proposed implementation of parametric polymorphism a great feat of modern software engineering, and a testament to the open source process.

Anyway, they'll probably land in Go 1.18.

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I'm looking forward to them, and definitely agree it's a great feat of software engineering ... though I'm not sure about "testament to the open source process". Go is open source, but most of the core developers are Google employees, and definitely the folks that worked on generics (Ian and Robert, mainly) are full time at Google.

I don't actually think that's a bad thing: I love it that Google pays people to work on Go full time, and don't mind the language being spear-headed by a tight team with a vision (who happen to work at a commercial entity). I'm impressed with their direction, and ability to say no.

Yeah, let's be real -- just as with Go Modules and the "try" proposal, there is no "open source process" when it comes to major language changes; the decision is always ultimately made by the core team, not the community. And I agree with you -- this arrangement is fine! I strongly prefer it that way. The Go devs have an excellent track record of getting it right, even when it went against the prevailing wisdom.

Personally, I'm opposed to adding generics, but if we have to...I trust the Go devs to do it better than just about anyone else.

Thanks. I could take them or leave them. I've used generics a lot in C++, but as long as I can continue writing Go1 programs as I have been for the last 10 years, I'll be happy.

Oh, come now, calling C++ templates generics belittles their power. :p Honestly, the one thing I miss in any language is the complete power of C++ templates, but I definitely understand others' reluctance to include something like them in their language. Something that allows me to write simple generic functionality a la Java generics and not have to write the same code multiple times is good enough for me in go.

Luckily I do have some ability to use C++ at my current job, so I can get my fix again there :)

Out of interest, what makes you expect generics/any other lang changes to release with 1.18? Are there sources or other indications you can share?

https://golang.org/doc/faq#generics

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