Effective Java, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5Generics

IN release 1.5, generics were added to Java. Before generics, you had to cast every object you read from a collection. If someone accidentally inserted an object of the wrong type, casts could fail at runtime. With generics, you tell the compiler what types of objects are permitted in each collection. The compiler inserts casts for you automatically and tells you at compile time if you try to insert an object of the wrong type. This results in programs that are both safer and clearer, but these benefits come with complications. This chapter tells you how to maximize the benefits and minimize the complications. For a more detailed treatment of this material, see Langer's tutorial [Langer08] or Naftalin and Wadler's book [