RJUG: Tag-team Generics

This month’s presentation at the Rochester Java users Group was a bit of a hoot. Rochester Institute of Technology instructors James Heliotis and Axel T. Schreiner gave a tag-team presentation of Generics for Java and C#. Heliotis channelled James Gosling and Schreiner channelled Anders Heilsberg. Each tried to point out the foibles and flaws of the other’s implementation of Generics. Being both an ASPx and a Java develper, the smack-down code-off was a special treat for me.

Most of the work I do now is centered on Chains of Commands and Contexts, which seem tailor-made for Generics. One of the trade-offs with Commands and Contexts is that you have to do a lot of casting along the way. I’m thinking Generics might alleviate much of the casting.