Getters/Setters vs. member access (was: Subprocedure invocation)

[David Gibbs <david@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Pluta wrote:
> And I'm not arguing about whether you should or shouldn't access member
> variables; I prefer setters and getters myself.  And while the getter is
> pretty much a spelling issue (x = myvar *VS* x = getMyvar()), the setter is
> a philosophical issue as well.  Does "myvar = x" really indicate that you
> are calling something as well as "setMyvar(x)"?  That's up to you.

Well, I would have to both agree (with your thoughts in general), but 
disagree with the importance of getters/setters vs. member access.

I had a situation where I re-engineered a class and using a getter & 
setter saved my butt.

Originally the class had a String name field with a getter & setter.

I then reworked the class, based on new requirements, so the 'name' was 
now coming from a enclosed object.

Because I was using a getter & setter, I was able to change the class 
thusly:

--- old methods ---

public String getName() {
	return name;
}

public void setName(String name) {
	this.name = name;
}

--- new methods ---

private EnclosedObject encl;

public String getName() {
	return encl.getName();
}

public void setName(String name) {
	if (!name.equals(encl.getName()) {
		encl = EnclosureFactory.getItem(name);
	}
}

-------------------

Obviously that's an oversimplification ... and I didn't actually use the 
setter (my objects are all created by factories) ... but I didn't have 
to change anything else in my code to deal with a new implementation of 
the items name.

david