How Can We Implement Common Functionality for Collections of Slices with Different Types in Go?

Common Behaviour for Collections of Slices

In Go, working with collections of slices with different types can present challenges when implementing common functionality. This is especially true when elements need to be converted between types for comparison and processing.

Consider the case of working with half-open intervals, which represent periods in time with a defined start point. There are multiple types of half-open intervals, such as ClockInterval (restricted to a day) and Period (restricted to the existence of the universe).

Typically, you would create slices of these different interval types and require a common function to find the enclosing interval for a given time, regardless of the interval type.

One approach, as demonstrated in the referenced code, is to manually convert each slice to a common type before applying the enclosing interval function. However, this method requires explicit conversions for each new interval type added.

Conversion Considerations

Direct conversion between slices of different types is not supported in Go. The correct approach is to create a new slice and loop over it, converting each item individually. This can be optimized by preallocating the new slice.

Composition vs Inheritance

Composition is an alternative approach to defining common behaviour for collections of slices. Instead of a single slice type, you can define a base type that encapsulates the common functionality and store slices of different types within it. This allows for the implementation of the enclosing interval function once, within the base type, and access to the inner slice via convenience functions.

This approach has trade-offs. While it avoids code duplication, it introduces the need for additional convenience functions to interact with the inner slice and may be less efficient for specific use cases.

In Go, it is common to duplicate code for different types in certain scenarios. This is because the language promotes explicit type safety and separation of concerns, rather than heavy reliance on inheritance and abstract classes like in object-oriented programming paradigms.

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