DEFERRED TYPE INFERENCE OF GENERIC TYPE PARAMETERS IN FUNCTION CALLS TO OVERLOADED FUNCTIONS

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that facilitates the development and execution of a software program. During runtime of the software program, the system delays type inference on a generic type parameter of an implementation of an overloaded function, wherein the generic type parameter is associated with a type interval containing an unbounded lower limit and one or more self-typed constraints. Upon detecting a type query for a dynamic type of the generic type parameter, the system compares a queried type from the type query with a set of inference choices for the generic type parameter. If the queried type matches an inference choice from the set of inference choices, the system uses the inference choice to perform type inference on the generic type parameter.