Paper accepted to ICSE 2026

Sep 2025 Our paper entitled “Breaking Strong Encapsulation: A Comprehensive Study of Java Module Abuse” has been accepted to the 48th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2026).

This work represents the first empirical study on Breaking Strong Encapsulation (BSE) in the Java Platform Module System (JPMS). We collected and analyzed 4,079 GitHub issues to identify symptoms, abuse sources, and solutions. Our findings reveal a tension between module developers enforcing encapsulation and users attempting to break it, highlighting the need for effective mitigation strategies.

The paper will be presented at ICSE 2026 in May 2026. Congratulations to all co-authors: Yirui He, Jessy Ayala, Yecheng Zhou, Qiran Wang, and Joshua Garcia!