Why can't make to methods with same name but with different generics?

Question

I'm pretty new in Kotlin language, but I have just encountered some strange behavior that didn't have in other languages, so I wanted to ask why I can't do something like this:

fun <T> methodName()
{
    // whatev~ 
}

fun <T, K> methodName()
{
    // whatev~   
}

This code throws an error of "Conflicting overloads".

In other languages, for example C# I can do this and it's a pretty neat trick to have only one method that work for one or multiple types at the same time.

The only workaround I've found it's adding in each new method that I do an optional parameter that I'll never use, like:

fun <T> methodName()
{

}

fun <T, K> methodName(crappyParam: String = "")
{

}

Answer 1

The two methods would have the same signature in JVM type system (which doesn't support generics), which isn't allowed.

A JVM language could "mangle" such methods, e.g. giving them different names in bytecode. A JVM implementation of C# would have to.

But Kotlin doesn't. And doing so would hurt interoperability with Java, which is one of Kotlin's major requirements.