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How Do Developers Use Type Inference: An Exploratory Study in Kotlin by Flint, Samuel W.; Keshk, Ali M.; Dyer, Robert; Bagheri, Hamid is a scholarly article available to read on EtoBox.

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Statically typed languages offer numerous benefits to developers, such as improved code quality and reduced runtime errors, but they also require the overhead of manual type annotations. To mitigate this burden, language designers have started incorporating support for type inference, where the compiler infers the type of a variable based on its declaration/usage context. As a result, type annotations are optional in certain contexts, and developers are empowered to use type inference in these situations. However, the usage patterns of type annotations in languages that support type inference are unclear. These patterns can help provide evidence for further research in program comprehension, in language design, and for education. We conduct a large-scale empirical study using Boa, a tool for mining software repositories, to investigate when and where developers use type inference in 498,963 Kotlin projects. We choose Kotlin because it is the default language for Android development, one of the largest software marketplaces. Additionally, Kotlin has supported declaration-site optional type annotations from its initial release. Our findings reveal that type inference is frequently em

Author

Flint, Samuel W.; Keshk, Ali M.; Dyer, Robert; Bagheri, Hamid

Published

2024

Language

EN