alt Hacker Newsslowly implementing all the things they said we didn't need
Replies
It's not a bad thing to realize that one can be wrong and then strive for change.
Where did "they" say "we" didn't need generics? That sounds like a bad faith / misinterpretation / straw man; as someone else pointed out, they postponed generics until they figured out the use cases and whatnot.
Remember that the generics implementations in other languages (like Java) take up half the spec + implementation - that's not something that Go wanted.
Of course, if you go back and watch the original Go announcement it said that it would need generics once they figured out how to do it. And when the first version of generics landed it was said that generic methods would be added later, once they figured out how to do it. So that isn't applicable here. The need was always recognized.
They didn't say they never wanted to do generics, but that they did want to take their time and do them right.
Debatable how much they have been "right", although this gets them somewhat closer. And I think they have not been "wrong" in the ways they wanted to avoid (they referenced some issues with Java generics as prior art, although I forget the details).