Highlights
One of the biggest changes of the C# language
and the CLR is the introduction of generics. With .NET 1.0,
creating a flexible class or method that should use classes that
are not known at compile time must be based on the Object class. With the Object class, there’s no type safety during compile
time. Casting is necessary. Also, using the Object class for value types has a performance
impact.
.NET 2.0 supports generics. With generics, the
Object class is no longer necessary in
such scenarios. Generic classes make use of generic types that are
replaced with specific types as needed. This allows for type
safety: the compiler complains if a specific type is not supported
with the generic class.
Generics are a great feature, especially with
collection classes. Most of the .NET 1.0 collection classes are
based on the Object type. .NET 2.0
offers new collection classes that are implemented as generics.
Generics are not limited to classes; in this
chapter, you also see generics with delegates, interfaces, and
methods.
This chapter discusses the following:
