Go does not have a type hierarchy, so there is no top type.
You can easily use interface{} to make generic data structures, but interfaces have a time/space/code-complexity cost which makes them not worth it most of the time.
You can easily use interface{} to make generic data structures, but interfaces have a time/space/code-complexity cost which makes them not worth it most of the time.
Go does have a type heirarchy. It's just not very extensible. There is top (interface{}) and then there are all other types (which are subtypes of interface{}).
If Go didn't have a type heirarchy, you wouldn't be able to up- and down-cast (up-casts are performed via implicit coercion to interface{} and down-casts are explicit).
>You can easily use interface{} to make generic data structures, but interfaces have a time/space/code-complexity cost which makes them not worth it most of the time.
You also lose any semblance of type safety, which is kind of awful.
As for losing type safety when writing generic containers, this is true, and another reason why people don't do this.