A new JDK Enhancement Proposal (JEP) aims to enforce that final fields truly remain immutable in Java, addressing the misuse of deep reflection that allows their mutation. This change would prepare developers for a future Java version where such mutations will be disallowed by default. The proposal seeks to align final fields with immutable constructs, further promote integrity in Java programming, and maintain compatibility with existing serialization libraries. Despite these changes, there are no plans to remove any part of the Java Platform API or hinder deserialization processes.
The proposal aims to ensure Java's integrity by default by restricting final field mutation, enabling a safer and potentially faster programming environment for developers.
Java developers rely on final fields to represent immutable state, but current platform APIs allow their reassignment, undermining correctness and invalidating optimizations.
Future Java releases may disallow mutation of final fields by deep reflection, requiring explicit enabling for such capability, thus preparing developers for this change.
The JEP intends to align final fields in normal classes with the immutable principles of record classes, enhancing consistency across Java's data structures.
Collection
[
|
...
]