> In other words: haXe's generics are "compile-time" checks not runtime safe.
Same as Java, Same as C++. Of course, that doesn't mean it is good... but the runtime wasn't built having those things in mind, because you cannot affect the runtime, that's the only thing you can do. But, if to be honest, generics mean something entirely different. In an interesting way, what Adobe posted as a roadmap for AS evolution speaks about actual generics, but, I'm guessing it will take several years before we hear about that. Vector in AS3, strictly speaking, isn't a generic, it's a class created from template. This is, in a plain talk "generic", but not so per exact definition of the term. "Generic" is usually applicable in system with multiple dispatch, when arguments combinations are considered. I.e. (defgeneric combine (a b) (:documentation "Combines strings and integers")) (defmethod combine ((a string) (b integer)) (concatenate 'string a (write-to-string b))) (defmethod combine ((a integer) (b string)) (concatenate 'string (write-to-string a) b)) would be an illustration of what it actually means. I.e. you define a generic method, and then you define specializations of the method. Or, in some other languages the declaration of generic itself is implied, and it is created as soon as any methods are found. Or, if you consider a more modern language - HaXe, then any variable, or function argument that you did not type explicitly is generic, because it will accept any type, which is suitable in the context you provided. As it happens with vectors, you can only use a particular method derived from a generic template, but you don't do generic programming per se. That part has been done for you by the template generator.
