General

Generics allow templating classes to specify types.

This is a list without generics:

List list;
String s;

list = new ArrayList();

list.add("hello");

s = (String) list.get(0);

This is the same list, specifying it contains Strings:

List<String> list;
String s;

list = new ArrayList<>();

list.add("hello");

s = list.get(0); // no casting

More Information

• Generics