MinimizeMutability

Minimize mutability

Wherever possible, use constructor injection to create immutable objects. Immutable objects are simple, shareable, and can be composed. Follow this pattern to define your injectable types:

public class RealPaymentService implements PaymentService {

   private final PaymentQueue paymentQueue;
   private final Notifier notifier;

   @Inject
   RealPaymentRequestService(
       PaymentQueue paymentQueue,
       Notifier notifier) {
     this.paymentQueue = paymentQueue;
     this.notifier = notifier;
   }

   ...

All fields of this class are final and initialized by a single @Inject-annotated constructor. Effective Java discusses other benefits of immutability.

Injecting methods and fields

Constructor injection has some limitations:

• Injected constructors may not be optional.
• It cannot be used unless objects are created by Guice. This is a dealbreaker for certain frameworks.
• Subclasses must call super() with all dependencies. This makes constructor injection cumbersome, especially as the injected base class changes.

Method injection is most useful when you need to initialize an instance that is not constructed by Guice. Extensions like AssistedInject and Multibinder use method injection to initialize bound objects.

Field injection has the most compact syntax, so it shows up frequently on slides and in examples. It is neither encapsulated nor testable. Never inject final fields; the JVM doesn't guarantee that the injected value will be visible to all threads.