Re: Java Accessors Are They Evil?

[James Perkins <jrperkinsjr@xxxxxxxxx>]

Well, I am a procedural programmer, so that could by why I'm having trouble
grasping this ;-)

My basic class structure for a customer would look something like this.
A Customer class that represents various information about the customer, id,
address, etc.
A CustomerFactory (maybe bad terminology) an interface that would build the
customer.
A CustomerFactoryImpl that would implement the CustomerFactory interface and
build the customer based on a database file.

How would I access information in the Customer class with no accessors? If I
need to know the customers phone number, wouldn't I have to have an
accessor?

And please let me know if I'm completing insane and making a mockery of the
Java language. It's the only way I'll learn ;-)

James R. Perkins


On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 15:04, Dan Kimmel <dkimmel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Yes. Accessors are Evil.
>
> The author (this was written in 2003) points out correctly that
> accessors are PROCEDURAL artifacts. If you design your classes and
> methods well, there's no need to access the instance values of an object
> other than through the methods of the class (class methods and instance
> methods). The author also points out that database interface IS
> PROCEDURAL; that database access requires procedural code. Still, I try
> to design my database interface such that it implements object
> persistence. The class can instantiate from a database and serialize an
> instance to the database but it doesn't have to. The object could stand
> alone without the database if I could keep memory refreshed infinitely.
> Methods on the object (eg, Employee.increasePay(int bumpUp)) update the
> database and maintain values in the object. I might have a class method
> such as Employee.instantiateFromDatabase(String empno) that will do all
> the fetch necessary.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:java400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of James Perkins
> Sent: Tuesday, February 03, 2009 3:06 PM
> To: Java Programming on and around the iSeries / AS400
> Subject: Java Accessors Are They Evil?
>
> Hello All,
> I realize this article is kind of old, but I found it interesting none
> the less.
> http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2003/jw-0905-toolbox.html
>
> I just can't figure out how you can get around getters and setters. I
> understand it makes more sense to build a method to calculate a discount
> or something like that, but what I don't understand is how you create an
> object based on data from a database?
>
> Maybe I'm over thinking this or taking what the author is writing too
> literally, but I'm curious to see what some of you more experienced Java
> developers think.
>
> James R. Perkins
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