...

We will provide unit tests to validate the proposed changes.

Rejected Alternatives

1) Add the method "Map<Param<?>, Object> getInternalParmMap()" in in the WithParams interface. And do not add the initializeMapWithDefaultValues(...) util method.

In comparison to the proposed approach, this alternative approach makes the life a bit easier for the algorithm developer. And algorithm developer would not need to write code to invoke initializeMapWithDefaultValues(). The algorithm developer just needs to override getInternalParmMap() to return a member field of type Map<Param<?>, Object>. 

The downside of this proposed approach is that the algorithm users will see the getInternalParmMap() API in the WithParams interface that is never useful to them. The existence of getInternalParmMap() and getParamMap() on the same interface could be confusing to algorithm users.

We choose not to use this approach because we believe there will be much more algorithm users than algorithm developers. And it is more important to optimize the algorithm users' experienceThere is no rejected alternatives to be listed here yet.