Toward Zero-Overhead Genericity in Java

Generic type definitions can aid software reuse and hence reduce development costs. Reusability should ideally neither compromise program clarity nor incur run-time costs in comparison to one-off programming. In this paper we formulate requirements for a practically acceptable mechanism for genericity in Java. We show that two recent proposals fail to meet the requirements for a test case involving collection types in a data processing application. We suggest an alternative Java extension which is more flexible, clearer and more efficient.