Mutability Detector is a lightweight static analysis tool for Java which
allows you to unit test for immutability. Using immutable objects is regarded as
improving readability of your Java code, and greatly simplifying multithreaded
code. However, without language support, it's all to easy to render classes
mutable, and introduce the potential for subtle, hard to detect bugs. Mutability
Detector gives developers a way to write immutable classes, and help keep them
immutable.
Mutability Detector uses and depends on several free, open-source Java
libraries, such as Objectweb ASM. Also, being able to look at the source of the
JDK, has greatly helped in improving the analysis.
The audience will learn of a simple little utility that may just help them in
their day-to-day development of Java. People can help out in the usual FLOSS way
- using it, reporting bugs, giving feedback (especially the ways in which I
suck).