One of the essential concepts to understand is flexibility in OOP.  A good design requires the ability to extend it.  There are ways to do this.  However, they require us to incorporate mechanisms for validation and growth.  That means we need to find a balance between the core to our functionality and what can be altered as an enhancement. Flexibility in OOP – Many Options There are multiple ways to build flexibility into your object-oriented design.  We can use parameters that determine functionality, check for class types, or even plugin commands.  These are critical for an effective design as we want to keep our solution flexible enough to grow.  Anything rigid is also going to be fragile to some extent. ... Read more

We have discussed the accessor levels of our data.  In most environments, the three levels are public, protected, and private.  In this episode, we go deeper into these concepts and a practical approach to data hiding. The Private Access Level This level of access should be our default.  It can be considered the critical step in data hiding.  Private hides our data and methods.  I find a physical example often works best for the goal of this approach.  When we purchase a physical device, we prefer fewer buttons and interface widgets over more.  The Apple iPod was a perfect example of this.  There were very few controls, so the interface was easy to understand.  Our software should follow the same... Read more