[fpc-devel] Generics

[Flávio Etrusco]

On 4/11/06, Micha Nelissen <micha at neli.hopto.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Apr 2006 23:33:12 -0300
> "Flávio Etrusco" <flavio.etrusco at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Type erasure generics' pros:
>
> What does type erasure mean without a runtime engine (VM) ?
>

That the "template" is not aware of the instantiated type of the
template parameters, they are only accessed/resolved through oop
(inheritance/polymorphism).
A VM isn't necessary at all; for instance, J2SE 5 didn't introduce any
modification in the VM (for supporting generics or anything), and most
of the compiler changes were only needed because of the Java object
model.

-Flávio