[weberc2]

Right, but as previously mentioned, Go's multiple return values are already "generic" and already signal developer intent. If you have a library method that returns (int, err) every single Go developer will check the err first before using the int. User-defined generics don't improve this use case.

[Groxx]

Result types can, at runtime, by making the err case panic if the value is accessed, instead of just returning a zero value. They let you move past intent and into enforcement. Multiple returns are nothing but intent, and cannot be made stronger.

You can do that without generics, of course. But the developer overhead is large enough that it effectively does not happen, as you have to redo that by hand for every type. That's what generics bring - ergonomics good enough to stop using less safe workarounds (e.g. `interface{}`, multiple returns).