Help with Generics in VB

Im new to VB. I am coming from a Java background. In the following code

Sub PrintList(Of T)(ByVal list As List(Of T))
        For Each obj As T In l开发者_高级运维ist
            Console.Write(obj.ToString() + " ")
        Next
        Console.WriteLine()
    End Sub

Can someone help me to understand what Sub PrintList(Of T)(ByVal list As List(Of T)) means? Why do you need the (Of T) part? Why isn't (ByVal list As List(Of T)) sufficient?

In Java, this would be something like:

public static <T> void printList(List<T> list)

The (Of T) after PrintList is the equivalent to the <T> before void in the Java version. In other words, it's declaring the type parameter for the generic method.

Adding to what Jon Skeet said, this sub appears to be able to take any type of list. If PrintList(Of T) was just PrintList, then you would be stuck specifying what type of List you want to use for your parameter. You could no longer have 2 calls to this sub taking two different types of lists without overloading the sub.

What I mean by 2 different types of lists is:

List(of string)
List(of integer)