Type Erasure

Generics in Java are a compile-time tool. The compiler uses <T> declarations to check types and reject bad code, then it strips that type information out before producing bytecode. The class that runs on the JVM doesn't know whether a Box<Product> was once a Box<String> or a Box<Integer>. This lesson covers what that erasure actually does, why Java chose this design over the alternative, and the visible consequences (especially bridge methods and the loss of runtime type info).