In accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a technique for allowing a first method to override a second method as long as specified criteria are satisfied, even if the types of the parameters of the first method differ from the types of the parameters of the second method, and even if the return type of the first method differs from the return type of the second method. As a result of the technique, older methods, which do not have generic return types and/or generically typed parameters, can continue to override methods that did not used to have generic return types and/or generically typed parameters, but now do.