New language features have a place in game code?

[Super Vegeta]

Generics are obviusly very useful for saving the trouble of copy-pasting code that is exactly the same in function, but intended to be used with different types. Operator overloading allows to write shorter code (although sometimes the overloads can be vague and not so obvious if one looks at the code after a long time).

[LP]

Operator overloading and "for...in" loops are huge space/time savers and help to improve the readability of your code.

However, I would advise to stay away from using generics. In most situations they are time savers on short-term, but they actually hurt the readability of the code and indirectly reduce non-functional quality attributes of the software you are working on. I personally avoid them like a plague.

Generics are obviusly very useful for saving the trouble of copy-pasting code that is exactly the same in function, but intended to be used with different types.

I don't agree. You can avoid copy-pasting by using refactoring properly, with the common techniques like class inheritance among others. Using generics is mostly a quick and dirty approach to a problem, so that you can quickly achieve something without proper architectural design and ignoring any existing software design patterns that may apply.

I think generics were introduced to Pascal languages for marketing reasons, they were not really necessary. This is a similar issue to exceptions. I also rarely use exceptions myself and consider them unnecessary, similar to Joel Spolsky's opinion (he's co-founder of Stack Overflow).

[Mirage]

Of modern language features only generics are really useful.
As it is really boring to copy/paste the same code just to create a hash map with different key/value types.
From the other side, in Delphi generics are achievable without language support - there is an include-based approach compatible with older versions of Delphi and FreePascal.
So I wrote a library with generic collections and algorithms based on the approach and have no need in a language support of generics.

[code_glitch]

Sorry for the potentially ignorant question, but how much of that is/will be supported by FPC?