Skip to main content
Software Engineering

Return to Answer

in source code added
Source Link
Doc Brown
Doc Brown
  • 220.5k
  • 35
  • 410
  • 625

Some very good answers already here. But one thing to add:

In most modern OO languages it is a good habit (in Java AFAIK its necessary) to put each class into its own file (please don't get nitty about C++ where you often have two files).

So it is virtually impossible to keep the functions in a derived class acessing a protected variable of a base class "vertically close" in source code to the variable definition. But ideally they should be kept there, since protected variables are intended for internal use, which makes functions acessing them often "a closely related concept".

Some very good answers already here. But one thing to add:

In most modern OO languages it is a good habit (in Java AFAIK its necessary) to put each class into its own file (please don't get nitty about C++ where you often have two files).

So it is virtually impossible to keep the functions in a derived class acessing a protected variable of a base class "vertically close" to the variable definition. But ideally they should be kept there, since protected variables are intended for internal use, which makes functions acessing them often "a closely related concept".

Some very good answers already here. But one thing to add:

In most modern OO languages it is a good habit (in Java AFAIK its necessary) to put each class into its own file (please don't get nitty about C++ where you often have two files).

So it is virtually impossible to keep the functions in a derived class acessing a protected variable of a base class "vertically close" in source code to the variable definition. But ideally they should be kept there, since protected variables are intended for internal use, which makes functions acessing them often "a closely related concept".

Source Link
Doc Brown
Doc Brown
  • 220.5k
  • 35
  • 410
  • 625

Some very good answers already here. But one thing to add:

In most modern OO languages it is a good habit (in Java AFAIK its necessary) to put each class into its own file (please don't get nitty about C++ where you often have two files).

So it is virtually impossible to keep the functions in a derived class acessing a protected variable of a base class "vertically close" to the variable definition. But ideally they should be kept there, since protected variables are intended for internal use, which makes functions acessing them often "a closely related concept".