The use of getters and setters for different programming languages [closed]
- by leonhart88
So I know there are a lot of questions on getters and setters in general, but I couldn't find something exactly like my question. I was wondering if people change the use of get/set depending on different languages. I started learning with C++ and was taught to use getters and setters. This is what I understand:
In C++ (and Java?), a variable can either be public or private, but we cannot have a mix. For example, I can't have a read-only variable that can still be changed inside the class. It's either all public (can read and change it), or all private (can't read and can only change inside the class). Because of this (and possibly other reasons), we use getters and setters.
In MATLAB, I can control the "setaccess" and "getaccess" properties of variables, so that I can make things read-only (can directly access the property, but can't overwrite it). In this case, I don't feel like I need a getter because I can just do class.property.
Also, in Python it is considered "Pythonic" to not use getters/setters and to only put things into properties if needed. I don't really understand why its OK to have all public variables in Python, because that's opposite of what I learned when I started with C++.
I'm just curious what other people's thoughts are on this. Would you use getters and setters for all languages? Would you only use it for C++/Java and do direct access in MATLAB and Python (which is what I am currently doing)? Is the second option considered bad? For my purposes, I am only referring to simple getters and setters (just return/set the value and do not do anything else).
Thanks!
