245: Highlights

• Constructors, getters, and setters are called access methods. When you move instance-variable accesses and assignments into access methods, you are practicing data abstraction.
• Data abstraction has many virtues, including the following:
  • Your programs become easier to reuse.
  • Your programs become easier to understand.
  • You can easily augment what a class provides.
  • You can easily improve the way that data are stored.
• If you anticipate that the detailed definition of a class may change, then you should provide access methods for the instance variables to isolate the effects of the potential changes.