Hmm, the Travis logs are very slow to show up here. The failing test can be replicated with

julia> type Test_type end

julia> test_type = Test_type()
Test_type()

julia> Base.show_method_candidates(IOBuffer(), MethodError(getindex,(test_type, 1,1)))
ERROR: MethodError: `ndims` has no method matching ndims(::TypeVar)
 in show_delim_array at ./show.jl:200
 in show_delim_array at show.jl:189
 in show_method_candidates at replutil.jl:224
 in eval at no fileSYSTEM: show(lasterr) caused an error

So clearly stuff is pretty borked.

I stumbled across this and happened to notice that @vtjnash just added this to the 0.4 milestones. To explain a bit further, @JeffBezanson I think there's a chance this might actually achieve some of your goals for UnionAll in #8974---if you unpack TypeVars first, then I think Union-logic should work in a wider range of contexts.

But currently I lack the time to pursue this further; if this is really up for 0.4, I'm afraid someone else will have to look into this more deeply.

Is this still relevant?

edit: covered by #8974, Jeff says?

It's definitely covered in #8974, but if that's a release or two away it could still be relevant. Would take some time to polish up, however.

Covered by #18457.