C# Generics and polymorphism: an oxymoron?

Question

I just want to confirm what I\'ve understood about Generics in C#. This has come up in a couple code bases I\'ve worked in where a generic base class is used to create type

Answer 1

I think what you're looking for is:

  SomeClass(of someType) someInstance = factory(of someType).Create();
or maybe
  SomeClass(of someType) someInstance = factory.Create(of someType)();
or
  SomeClass(of someType) someInstance = factory.Create();

It's possible to have a set of factory classes to create different generic classes, or to have a factory with a generic type parameter to indicate which generic type it should create (note that in either case, the type parameter is the type parameter for the generic class, rather than being the generic class itself). It's also possible to have a factory which is designed to return instances of one particular form of a generic type.