Generics?

[RF Troubleshooter Inc.]

I apologize if this question has been asked and answered already. I couldn't
find it in previous posts, so I am asking it here.

What is the deal with generics? Are they going to be supported in a future
version? Is there a technical reason why generics are not included or is it
just a feature that hasn't been a high priority?

[Pavel Bansky [MSFT]]

Hi,

at this moment generics feature enlarges the .NET MF core to much.
It's always trade-off between size and features.

Pavel Bánský
Microsoft Czech Republic
http://bansky.net/blog

[RF Troubleshooter Inc.]

Thanks for the quick reply. I get the trade-off argument, but my target has
32M of RAM and runs at 208MHz. Does it make sense to add it as an optional
"feature" or can that work with core CLR functionality?

[Steve Maillet [MSFT]]

"RF Troubleshooter Inc." <RFTrouble...@discussions.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:156D9340-03CE-4C76...@microsoft.com...

> Thanks for the quick reply. I get the trade-off argument, but my target
> has
> 32M of RAM and runs at 208MHz. Does it make sense to add it as an
> optional
> "feature" or can that work with core CLR functionality?

Code size, as discussed already, is a key factor. Making generics optional
is non-trivial as it's fundamental to the core instruction set and to the
framework libraries. Furthermore, generics were a means to create faster
type specific collections and classes and are essentially instantiated at
JIT time on the desktop. However, with an interpreter things are different
and you still have to do all type resolution at run time so the performance
benefits of the desktop implementations isn't really there. We do continue
to look at and consider the problem but at this time, have no announced
plans for Generics.

--
Steve Maillet
Program Manager - .NET Micro Framework
http://blogs.msdn.com/smaillet