Fine. That's what I meant.
> Do you really not see why that's annoying?
I can if you believe in purity over all else.
> That's not a matter of tradeoffs, because they've already made generics possible---for themselves.
Sorry, but what? Are you really trying to claim that adding generics for the entire language has exactly the same trade offs as adding a few built in functions that are generic?
> At best they might be thinking something like "only WE are capable of grokking when generics are appropriate; everyone else would abuse them", which is rather arrogant, no?
I think you've significantly misunderstood the issue. I believe my initial characterization is right: you think this is about purity. It's not.
Please read Russ Cox's short blurb on the "Generic Dilemma." [1] No part of it has anything to do with "we know better than you."
> The official response seems to be "no it isn't, you don't really need them."
No. The official response is "we don't know of an implementation that we're happy with." It's not a philosophical stance. It's a practical stance.
