Re: [PW-dev] Properties - object variables vs. accessors

[James G S. <JG...@TA...>]

Stephen Adkins <ste...@of...> wrote:
>At 10:52 AM 6/11/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>>I truly believe that we will end up going back and making all code use
>>accessor functions.
>
>All code *outside* the class should *always* use accessor functions.
>The only question to be resolved is whether code *inside* the class
>(i.e. in other methods of the class) must obey this rule also.
>In other words, we treat each attribute as though it is "private".

Whether to use the direct hash value or the accessor function depends on a few 
things:

(1) Is this the accessor function?  Don't want too deep a recursion.
(2) Do we want to value in the hash or the value of the attribute as seen by 
external objects?  The default accessor might have some nice things like 
checking the state object or bounds checking that we may not want to maintain 
in multiple places.

>I think that we leave the choice to whomever codes the class.

Agreed.  The internals of the class are not important as long as it behaves in 
the proper fashion (thinking as an end user here) -- that's what OOP is all 
about (kindof).
-- 
James Smith <JG...@TA...>, 979-862-3725
Texas A&M CIS Operating Systems Group, Unix