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kotlinlang

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

It's a pure stylistic choice. `emptyList` could be a property of type `List&lt;Nothing&gt;`, 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.

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