I have a generic interface and I have no functional need for a non-generic version. However, all of the CLR and professional code I've seen has defined a non-generic base interface. Is this for a functional reason, a guideline, or just community habit?

CodePudding user response：

No, if there is no functional need for it, don't add it.

There is some legacy in the framework classes due to historic reasons. But if you take a look at some newer interfaces like IReadOnlyCollection it only have a generic version. Older interfaces like IEnumerable predates the generic version.

There are some situations where a non generic base type is useful, like when you want to treat a bunch of objects with different generic parameters in the same way, but that is a rather specialized use case.