Re: Buttocks tight [WAS: Re: What's the use of private?]

From:

Daniel Pitts <newsgroup.spamfilter@virtualinfinity.net>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:52:39 -0800

Message-ID:

<47bb1632$0$3017$4d87748@newsreader.readnews.com>

Mike Schilling wrote:

Daniele Futtorovic wrote:

There's no disagreement here: it is my opinion too, and I stated it,
that variables had better, as a rule, be kept private. This means
manipulating the more important of them through getters and
setters, implicitly.
A word, however, on this recurring reference to "rearranging" the
workings of a class. It might be one occasionally has to rearrange
private variables and how they're used. That's a good reason to keep
them private to begin with. But the overall contract of a class is
something that never ought to have to be changed.

Exactly. That's why the bits of implementation that you don't want to
make part of the contract should be marked private or perhaps
package-private.

Right, and my only point is that includes ALL implementation details
that you don't want exposed. There is a good reason to make a lot of
methods private. I once heard (not sure if I agree with it) that
private methods needn't be as concerned with invariants. Pre-conditions
and post-conditions should be met by public methods, but private methods
may leave things hanging. Think fragments of a process.

Anyway, I haven't given that enough thought to whole-heartedly endorse
it, but it sounds reasonable anyway.

--
Daniel Pitts' Tech Blog: <http://virtualinfinity.net/wordpress/>