[Biojava-l] Access to variables

[Nathan S. Haigh]

Apologies if this comes through more than once - I forgot to send in plain
text without attachments!

In case you don’t know – I’m new to Java
.

I’m working out an interface/class structure for part of an app I want to
convert from Perl to Java and I have a question about the best way to
provide access to variables to the client programmer:

Is it best to have variables you want the client programmer to access just
made public or is it best to provide access to them via a get/set method?
>From my limited reading of “Thinking in Java” I would think it best to hide
the implementation from the user and provide methods to access these
variables e.g. setThreshold and getThreshold modify the private variable
threshold – is that correct or am I way off the mark!?

Thanks for any clarification.

Nath

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Dr. Nathan S. Haigh
Bioinformatics PostDoctoral Research Associate
 
Room B2 211                                            Tel: +44 (0)114 22
20112
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences                Mob: +44 (0)7742 533
569
University of Sheffield                                Fax: +44 (0)114 22
20002
Western Bank                                           Web:
www.bioinf.shef.ac.uk
Sheffield                                      
www.petraea.shef.ac.uk
S10 2TN                                         	
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