A method includes receiving a portion of JAVA.TM. language software having a declaration of an instance of a generic class, parsing the declaration into a token corresponding to the generic class, and generating an intermediate language code block corresponding to the parsed declaration. The intermediate language code block is executable by a runtime engine. A system for compiling includes a parser receiving JAVA.TM. language source code having an instruction referencing a generic class and specifying a type of the generic class, and a code generator generating intermediate language code representing the source code.