Why are generics called generics?

Question

At the risk of becoming the village idiot, can someone explain to me why generics are called generics? I understand their usage and benefits, but if the definition of generic i

Answer 1

Okay, take this with a grain of salt, because I'm totally guessing, but I wonder whether it might be a bastardization of "Generative Types".

Conceptually, when you specialize a List into a List< String >, it generates a new type. At least, that's the way it works in C++ templates and in C# generics.

In Java, since the parameterizations are discarded by the compiler using type erasure, it actually doesn't generate a new specialized type, so who knows?

I suppose you could say that Java implements a genericized version of generative types :)

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ON EDIT:

Here's another point of view...

The type List< String > is not what they're talking about when they refer to a "generic" type. I think the terminology is actually referring to the List< T > type, which is how the type exists in its generic form. List< String > is a specialization of the generic List< T >.