[Info-vax] OpenVMS system programming language

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 2/24/2025 3:23 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> The decision to implement generics in a backwards compatible way in Java
>> 5 had some immediate benefits, but we are also paying the price today.
> 
> It seemed to be done to maintain backward binary compatibility with older
> bytecode that could not be recompiled. Was there a lot of such bytecode? I
> never realized ...

It was not just a binary compatibility for already compiled
byte code. It would have impacted the ability to recompile
existing source code as well.

Yes - lots of code.

Java got generics in its 6th version (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5) and
implemented generics in a way compatible with existing collections.

C#/.NET got generics in its 3rd version (1.0, 1.1, 2.0) and implemented
generics in a way that required new collections to be added.

Arne