Getters And Setters vs Public Fields

Developers should use getters and setters to maintain encapsulation, ensuring data integrity by validating inputs before assignment and preventing direct access to sensitive fields meets developers should use public fields when creating simple data structures like dtos (data transfer objects) or pocos (plain old clr objects) where encapsulation is not a priority, or in performance-critical scenarios where minimizing method calls is beneficial. Here's our take.

Getters And Setters

Nice Pick

Developers should use getters and setters to maintain encapsulation, ensuring data integrity by validating inputs before assignment and preventing direct access to sensitive fields

Pros

• They are essential in scenarios requiring computed properties, logging changes, or implementing business rules, such as in enterprise applications, APIs, or frameworks that rely on property-based data binding
• Related to: object-oriented-programming, encapsulation

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Public Fields

Developers should use public fields when creating simple data structures like DTOs (Data Transfer Objects) or POCOs (Plain Old CLR Objects) where encapsulation is not a priority, or in performance-critical scenarios where minimizing method calls is beneficial

Pros

• They are also common in languages like Python or JavaScript where public access is the default, but in stricter languages like Java or C#, they are generally discouraged in favor of properties or private fields with accessors to maintain control over data
• Related to: object-oriented-programming, encapsulation

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

Use Getters And Setters if: You want they are essential in scenarios requiring computed properties, logging changes, or implementing business rules, such as in enterprise applications, apis, or frameworks that rely on property-based data binding and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.

Use Public Fields if: You prioritize they are also common in languages like python or javascript where public access is the default, but in stricter languages like java or c#, they are generally discouraged in favor of properties or private fields with accessors to maintain control over data over what Getters And Setters offers.

The Bottom Line

Getters And Setters wins

Developers should use getters and setters to maintain encapsulation, ensuring data integrity by validating inputs before assignment and preventing direct access to sensitive fields