About generics

.NET has a concept called generics and PowerShell, as a .NET language, can make use of generic types and methods.

Microsoft describes this as follows in an article with the same name as this section:

Generic classes and methods combine reusability, type safety, and efficiency in a way that their non-generic counterparts cannot.

(Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/fundamentals/types/generics)

The use of generic classes, or types, is common in the modern use of PowerShell.

Generic classes

.NET has the concept of a generic class; some of these are very common such as System.Collections.Generic.List<T>, where T is a type that must be declared when the instance is created. For example:

[System.Collections.Generic.List[string]]::new()

Generic types avoid the cost of what is known as boxing. This is where a value is wrapped in an instance of System.Object before it is stored.

The cost of boxing is...