Improving Type Error Messages For Generic Java
Stc
Date: 2008-04-24
Time: 12:00
Room: BBL room 471
Speaker: Nabil el Boustani
Title: Improving Type Error Messages for Generic Java (Thesis Defense)
Abstract
Generics, alternatively called parametric polymorphism, are a powerful
programming concept that makes higher and cleaner abstractions possible,
which
helps developing reusable code. Java supports parametric polymorphism
since its
1.5 release, where it was perceived as one of the great and most advanced
features added to the language. However, adding parametric polymorphism to a
language that is built on inclusion polymorphism can be confusing to a
novice
programmer, because the typing rules are suddenly different and, in the
case of
Java, quite complex.
To help novice programmers get accustomed to the new typing rules, we
describe a
framework in this thesis that can be used by the type checking process to
generate error messages that explain why a type error occurs and contain
additional hints, which describe how to correct a type error or prevent new
errors in future compilations. This framework only supports the type
checking of
generic method invocations, where the compiler must infer the type
arguments of
a method.
