New publication: "On Access Restriction with Java Wildcards"

This paper develops on the theory of variant parametric types from which wildcards originated, and studies a framework to describe wildcards access restriction issues in detail. Beyond characterizing the formal access rules to methods and fields through wildcard-typed references, the paper shows that such characterization can be naturally described and understood in terms of the ability of (instances of) a generic class to produce/consume elements of the abstracted type. The connection drawn between the formal and conceptual descriptions is intended to promote the understanding and fruitful exploitation of this new programming concept.