How to impliment IVector<T> interface that impliments INumber<T>?

[Shadowblitz16]

How would one go about implementing a IVector interface?

I have ran into many problems while doing so.

For example I could not figure out how to do something like this...

public interface IVectorMultiplyOperators <TSelf, T> :
     IMultiplyOperators<TSelf, TSelf, TSelf>,
     IMultiplyOperators<T    , TSelf, TSelf>,
     IMultiplyOperators<TSelf, T    , TSelf>
{

}```

since you get this error...
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1137169841720131674/1137169841938239619/image.png

There is also the problem of implementing Create and Convert From and To methods
As well as Parsing and Formatting.

The reason I would like to use INumber as a base is because it holds a interface for some things like...
- One
- Zero
- Abs
- Min
- Max
- Sign
- Clamp

which only exists in INumber<T> and I don't think we can implement a custom interface for existing numeric structs

[tannergooding]

You wouldn't define all the different versions of IMultiplyOperators

You'd likely define something like this instead:

public interface IVectorMultiplyOperators<TSelf, T> : IMultiplyOperators<TSelf, TSelf, TSelf>
    where TSelf : IVectorMultiplyOperators<TSelf, T>
    where T : INumber<T>
{
    static abstract TSelf operator *(TSelf left, T right);
}

Users who want to multiply a vector by a scalar would then need to constrain to IVectorMultiplyOperators as its a specialized operation specific to vectors and not a more general purpose operation that you'd encounter on more typical types.

Typical types are T in, T out and if a user has a U they need to first convert it to a T.

[tannergooding]

Otherwise, you end up with issues because TSelf and T could technically be the same and then IMultiplyOperators<T , TSelf, TSelf>, IMultiplyOperators<TSelf, T , TSelf>, and IMultiplyOperators<TSelf, TSelf, TSelf> all conflcit.

However, with the approach I gave above, you can have one method that implements both, since they can be disambiguated by full name (one is IVectorMultiplyOperators.operator * and the other IMultiplyOperators.operator *).

[Shadowblitz16]

The problem with that is there would be no way to implement both something like
Math.Mean(vector2a, vector2b);
Math.Mean(vector2a, numberb);

I want to implement a generic Math class over generic numbers and generic vectors and matricies

[tannergooding]

Due to how overload resolution, particularly with generics works; this won't be readily possible.

You cannot define an IOperators<T, T> with another IOperators<T, U> because T and U may be the same thing, which then leads to an ambiguity in the method table. That's also why defining an overload operator +(T left, U right) and its corresponding commutative operator (operator +(U left, T right) is problematic.