Immutator

An immutator is an agent, entity, or process that causes or facilitates a change in a system, particularly one involving the alteration of data, characteristics, or configurations to be unchangeable or protected. This often involves a transformation that removes the capacity for future modification to aspects or the entire system that is altered, creating a state of permanence. The alteration could be intended to improve efficiency, security, or maintainability, or even for malicious purposes that disrupt or compromise the system's integrity. The impact of an immutator is the removal of an existing state of mutability, or to cause the addition of aspects of immutability in the system.

Immutator meaning with examples

• The software's immutator function took the mutable data structures and transformed them into immutable objects. This change protected the system's critical data from accidental modification. Further, this resulted in improved performance by enabling certain optimizations within the data-accessing code. By design, the objects could not be overwritten, changed, or compromised and can be shared.
• Cybersecurity experts developed an immutator to encrypt sensitive financial records. The immutator encoded the information to be unreadable and resistant to decryption attacks. This approach was instrumental in safeguarding customers' financial data. After this, any attempt to tamper with the encrypted files would trigger an alert.
• In historical preservation, the conservator acted as an immutator, applying a specialized coating that protected the ancient artifacts. This treatment effectively stabilized the items and preserved them from damage or further deterioration. The goal was to fix in place and keep the items as close to the current state, without being corrupted from outside forces.
• The genetic engineer was using a form of biological immutator, using techniques that permanently altered an organism's genome by removing or changing certain genes. This action helped create desired traits in crops, which could lead to increased yields and resistance to diseases. The immutator action caused a permanent change in the organism's genetics.