Beginning Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008

Chapter 12. Generics

One of the (admittedly few) criticisms leveled against the first version of C# was its lack of support for generics. Generics in C++ (known as templates in that language) had long been regarded as an excellent way of doing things, as it allowed a single type definition to spawn a multitude of specialized types at compile time and thus save an awful lot of time and effort. For whatever reason, generics didn't quite make it into the first release of C#, and the language suffered because of it. Perhaps it was because generics are often seen as being quite difficult to get a handle on, or maybe it was decided that they weren't necessary. Fortunately, with C# version 2.0 generics have joined the party. Even better, they aren't very difficult to use, although they do require a slightly different way of looking at things.

In this chapter you do all of the following:

• Examine what a generic is. You learn about generics in fairly abstract terms at first, because learning the concepts behind generics is crucial to being able to use them effectively.

• See some of the generic types in the .NET Framework in action. This will help you to understand their functionality and power, as well as the new syntax required in your code.

• Define your own generic types, including generic classes, interfaces, methods, and delegates. You also learn additional techniques for further customizing generic types: the default keyword and type constraints.

What Is a Generic?

To best illustrate what a ...