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DHINO is not really a problem. We are missing true private methods and attributes in Perl, but it doesn't stop us from writing large maintainable programs. The rule is that you don't call methods that start with an underscore from outside of the class that defines. Sure, you could, but we don't.

Java's strict hiding has made my life more difficult in a number of situations. Recently, I needed to change the way URLConnection worked. I could have fixed the problem by changing a private attribute, but no no, you can't do that in Java. Instead I had to write 3 additional classes to set everything correctly for me. This is not good software engineering practice, it is a waste of my fucking time. (This was a one-off script, not a large program. Yes, I know, too many hacks and your app falls apart... but with Java you end up with an app that is falling apart AND a shit-ton of useless code to wade through.)

Anyway, if you think Java-style programming is "real programming", that's great. We don't need to work together, so you are free to waste your time however you like.



Out of curiosity, what attribute could you not change in URLConnection?

I don't consider Java-style any more "real" as any other, but if something is private in a class and doesn't provide methods for modification, there is either a reason for it, or it is poorly coded... If you mess with private variables, you could be jacking up the way the class works and not know it. If you instead write 3 additional classes, you're at least ensuring your URLConnection state is consistent.

> Anyway, if you think Java-style programming is "real programming", that's great. We don't need to work together, so you are free to waste your time however you like.

Sounds like you're a lot of fun to work with in any language.




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