The Java runtime offers a host of guarantees like memory safety, type safety, encapsulation, and many more. What makes these aspirations actual guarantees is a property called “integrity”. But there are a few mechanisms in Java that allow undermining integrity - some for good, some for less good reasons. Integrity by default states that all such operations need to be disabled by default. Today we discuss why that is so important, what the progress toward this goal has been, and what Java developers need to know to keep their applications going.

Nicolai Parlog talks to Ron Pressler, who is Java Architect at Oracle and, among other things, lead of Project Loom.