Why doesn't C# do “simple” type inference on generics?

Question

Just curious: sure, we all know that the general case of type inference for generics is undecidable. And so C# won\'t do any kind of sub-typing at all: if Foo

Answer 1

They already have solved it for many of the "easy" cases: C# 4.0 supports covariance and contravariance for generic type parameters in interfaces and delegates. But not classes unfortunately.

It's fairly easy to workaround this limitation:

List foos = bars.Select(bar => (Foo)bar).ToList();