"My late friend Alain Fournier once told me that he considered the lowest form of academic work to be taxonomy"
That's really unfortunate. I think a lot of the point of science (maybe even the entire point?) is to model the world and create taxonomies. Instead of being considered "busy work" or tedious, it should be held in the highest regard. Similar reasoning is why I think Rob Pike's opinion on generics is exactly wrong.
I actually had never read that Rob Pike quote and it's really baffling to me. It's not about generics at all! It's hard not to read it as saying "generics are recommended to me by the same weirdos who like inheritance, and I don't like inheritance, so generics are BS too".
That's really unfortunate. I think a lot of the point of science (maybe even the entire point?) is to model the world and create taxonomies. Instead of being considered "busy work" or tedious, it should be held in the highest regard. Similar reasoning is why I think Rob Pike's opinion on generics is exactly wrong.