Re: Java and OO Concepts

[James Perkins <jrperkinsjr@xxxxxxxxx>]

Not a problem at all. While I feel I understand how Java works (for the most
part) and I can write classes to do all kinds of this, I lack in the
understanding of how it should be done more than how to do it.

I think part of my problem is I look for examples and here is what I get.

public class Person {
  private String firstName;
  private String lastName;

  public Person() {
    firstName = "";
    lastName = "";
  }

  public String getFirstName() {
    return firstName;
  }

  public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
    this.firstName = firstName;
  }

...
}

> From what it sounds like ideally you don't want to do that. You want a class
that knows about a Person, but for most classes the just need to know it's a
Person and not a Dog. So generally speaking public getters and setters
should not be there. This is obviously not true 100% of the time, but I
think that's what is supposed to happen.

You are correct, there is no reference to polymorphism, but I have an old
copy of Thinking In Java that's pretty good. I suppose most of the concepts
are still the same. I think I'll have to read that chapter this weekend. I
might have one of those, "Oh.... ...I get it moments". That's usually what
happens to be, just wake up one day and finally get it :-)

--
James R. Perkins