Posted by Vince Morgan on 04/22/07 09:32

"Jerry Stuckle" <jstucklex@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:PI-dnRXMkqxCwLTbnZ2dnUVZ_qupnZ2d@comcast.com...
> Vince Morgan wrote:
> > "Steve" <no.one@example.com> wrote in message
> > news:zGbWh.1456$go5.566@newsfe12.lga...
> > You are undoubtedly aware that this has to be the most misunderstood
> > behaviour in all of php. Perhaps in all programing in all languages!!
The
> > number of posts I've read in the last few hours that clearly
misunderstand
> > _set() and __get() is astonishing! And all I've gleened from them was
> > further misunderstanding. Cant blame them realy. You have been trying
to
> > hammer the point home but the nails have just kept bending. I don't
think
> > I've ever been so confused about anything in my life.
> > Thank you!!
> > You have my undying grattitude Steve! :)))
> > Vince
> >
> >
>
> Vince,
>
> It's probably misunderstood because it's pretty much a violation of OO
> principles. OO principles indicate you can set and get values - but
> that you have separate setter and getter functions for these.
>
> Now you can emulate this in other OO languages such as Java, C++ and
> SmallTalk. But it's pretty much frowned upon. Experienced programmers
> in these languages pretty much follow the defacto standard to have
> separate getter and setter functions of each value you want to be able
> to change/retrieve.
>
> Doing it other ways just gets into too much of a hassle.
>
> Now PHP has tried to implement something which really is against OO
> principles (so what's new here?).
>
> I've looked at it - but I really don't find it useful. This style is
> not implemented in other languages for very good reason - it really
> complicates the code, just as these functions do in PHP.
>

I know I don't have to tell you that it certainly confused me. I was quite
stunned when I first saw that you could add methods to a js object.
However, as you don't have access to the source of those classes I can
understand why some consider it a whorthwhile feature.
However, in the case of php where you do have such access it seems ludicrous
to me to do such a thing. If someone wants to add additional functionality
to a php object, why not simply write it into the class? Treating them as
if they are compiled objects seems more than a little silly to me.

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