Getters and setters

<Long tedious background explanation of getters & setters goes here>

Getters are also known as accessors. Setters are also known as mutators.

Rule for good design, version 1:

• Whenever you declare a field, foo, make it private.
• Add a public getter called getFoo(), orisFoo for booleans.
• Make the return type of the getter the same as the field.
• Add a public setter called setFoo() & pass a parameter of foo's type.
• Inside the object, access the field directly.
• Elsewhere, use the getters & setters.

Simple.

Except we just killed Encapsulation.

Rule for good design, version 2:

• As above, but only add the getters &/or setters as necessary.

If the type or name of foo changes, should we change the methods too?

If we do, are we Information hiding?