Show HN: I implemented generics in my programming language

This are merely instanceof switches. Generics mean that you write

  fun(a,b): return a+b 

  fun(a <? implements Quackable>): a.quack()

  class <T has trait Number> Complex(a T, b T):
    Complex<T> operator+(Complex<T> other): return new Complex(this.a + other.a, this.b+other.b)
    Complex<T> operator-(Complex<T> other): return new Complex(this.a - other.a, this.b-other.b)
    Complex<T> operator*(Complex<T> other):
       return Complex(this.a * other.a - this.b * other.b, this.a * other.b + this.b * other.a)

If your function changes it's behaviour based on the type, then it's not generic.

Your list_contains function should be able to just do a == comparison regardless of whether it's an int or a string.

This is effectively no different than adding a parameter to one of your non-"generic" functions and just swapping behaviour based on that?

If I understand correctly, generics here are “type agnostic” functions in a strongly typed language?

Why not just use a weakly typed language and add type checking were needed?

It seems strange to put in so much effort for type checking then only to throw it overboard by implementing something that ignores type.

You implemented Specifics.

One of my pet-hates is fellow developers who call an implementation 'generic', but when you peek inside, there's just if-statements that (at best) cover the already-known input types.

Usually I point to Generics as an example of what "generic" actually means: You peek inside List<T>, it doesn't know about your type, it does the right thing anyway.

I saw your programming language on reddit and now here too. To me first looking at it, I think its built straight for parallelism, Didn't know you were on hackernews too, interesting stuff and I will try to keep an eye out hopefully for this language but what are some stuff where you think it can be really useful for?

You have implemented a form of ‘ad-hoc polymorphism’.

This is different from ‘parametric polymorphism’, which is what people call generics.

You should consider change the name, it looks like a lot like https://haxe.org/