Downsides to immutable objects in Java?

Posted by parkr on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by parkr
Published on 2009-04-15T15:37:03Z Indexed on 2010/05/15 7:44 UTC
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Filed under:

java

|

immutability

|

design

The advantages of immutable objects in Java seem clear:

consistent state
automatic thread safety
simplicity

You can favour immutability by using private final fields and constructor injection.

But, what are the downsides to favouring immutable objects in Java?

i.e.

incompatibility with ORM or web presentation tools?
Inflexible design?
Implementation complexities?

Is it possible to design a large-scale system (deep object graph) that predominately uses immutable objects?

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