LASIGE PhD student Catarina Gamboa and integrated researcher Alcides Fonseca published the paper “Usability Barriers for Liquid Types” at PLDI’25, a core A* conference in the area of Programming Languages. The paper is co-authored by Abigail Reese and Jonathan Aldrich, both from Carnegie Mellon University.

The paper “Usability Barriers for Liquid Types” investigates why advanced type systems like liquid types, despite their promise for improving software reliability, remain underused in practice. Through interviews and observational studies with both new and experienced developers—primarily using LiquidHaskell—the researchers identified nine key barriers that hinder broader adoption. These challenges fall into three main categories: developer experience (such as steep learning curves and confusing error messages), scalability issues when applying liquid types to large or complex codebases, and difficulties in understanding the underlying verification process. The study highlights the need for better tooling, clearer documentation, and more intuitive interfaces to make liquid types accessible to a wider audience. These insights are crucial for researchers and tool designers aiming to bridge the gap between cutting-edge verification techniques and everyday software development.