Curious why `emptyList()` is a `fun` and not a `va...

# stdlib

[Mark]

Curious why emptyList() is a fun and not a val? I can only guess it’s to do with generics

[ilya.gorbunov]

It's a pure stylistic choice. emptyList could be a property of type List<Nothing>, but we decided that making it a function and thus having to specify its type parameter when it can't be inferred would be advantageous for reading code.

[ilya.gorbunov]

Also this way it is consistent with emptyMap which on the contrary can't be a property, because of its invariant K type parameter.