Posted by Tony Marston on 12/05/06 10:20

"Curtis" <dyer85@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1165238811.552595.234690@16g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
> Tony Marston wrote:
>> No, encapsulation is not about making everything private, it is about
>> putting data and the operations which act upon that data into a single
>> class. The ability to make certain operations or pieces of data private
>> or
>> protected is OPTIONAL, not MANDATORY.
>
> I never claimed to summarize the entirety of encapsulation as the act
> of making EVERYTHING private, I was merely restating in my own words to
> try and clarify my understanding.
>
>> I am not saying that you MUST NOT make things private/protected, I am
>> simply
>> arguing against the statement that you MUST use the private/protected
>> option. The point is that his is entirely OPTIONAL and is a matter of
>> personal preference.
>
> You seem to be best friends with the straw man fallacy.

So do otherpeople in this newsgroup.

>> As for saying that you MUST make all data private and access it through
>> getters and setters, you obviously haven't read
>> http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2003/jw-0905-toolbox.html
>
> The sources I've gathered, although differ slightly in diction,
> generally concur on the meaning of encapsulation

Not everybody agrees on what encapsulation is. Not everybody agrees on what
OO is. For every opinion there is a different opinion. Some features are
optional, so it is a matter of personal preference whether to use them or
not.

>. It is true that not
> all experts in a field will agree on everything, but the areas in which
> there is genuine knowledge are not up for debate or subject to opinion.

I disagree. Absolutely everything is open to debate and subject to different
opinions.

> You may be confusing semantics for the actual act of implementation, in
> this case.
>
> Please don't put words in my mouth. I never said that you MUST do
> anything. Honestly, the source you cited is extremely dubious. Nearly
> every comment questions Allen Holub's credibility. This is not an
> authoritative source, by any means. One commenter even states:
>
> "We have countless of examples of projects / systems that were and are
> successful (the Java source code itself being one) using OO concepts
> that are contrary to what Holub advocates. In other words, most of us
> has been successful doing what he says we shouldn't do and what he
> claims won't work well."

That just goes to prove that for every opinion there is a different opinion.

--
Tony Marston
http://www.tonymarston.net
http://www.radicore.org

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