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Episode 73 “Immutable Data Beyond Value Classes” [AtA]

Posted on October 29, 2026

Object-Oriented Programming offers a lot of flexibility for modelling diverse domains but not all elements need that flexibility. Data, specifically, is often better modeled by simple, immutable types and while OOP does not prevent that, it can make it a bit cumbersome. So in recent and coming years, Java has gained and will gain a number of features that improve the situation: From flexible constructor bodies to records and value classes, from withers to lazy constants, and more - they all stand on their own, but they also come together to allow us to more expressively and elegantly define, construct, copy, and access immutable data.

In this "Ask the Architects" episode of the Inside Java Podcast, recorded during JavaOne 2026, Nicolai Parlog talks to Dan Smith, contributor to projects Amber and Valhalla and Senior Java Platform Developer at Oracle.

Show Notes

Additional Resources

In our show "Ask the Architects", we talk to experts in OpenJDK about their work on the Java language, API, and runtime. For Inside Java Podcast episodes, check out the podcast page or our YouTube playlist. For more Java news, subscribe to our RSS feed and follow @Java on X.

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