Again, we seem to agree.

But these methods are not public. That is, they are not meant to be part of the public API that the class and its subclasses present to the user. Rather it is part of the private API between the class and its subclasses. So they are private (at least to some extent).

I speak of really private methods, not just private to some extend. Those methods you speak of above I refer to as protected methods, using Java terminology as Java is the only other OO language I know. Those methods I call as methods since as you say--they need method lookup. Only really private methods I don't call as methods as I know exactly which method I want to call.

In any case it takes coordination between the maintainer of the class and subclass to make this work and continue to work. If you don't feel comfortable with that, then you shouldn't be subclassing.

I couldn't agree more!

My only addition to this is that: even though this is problematic I don't see any reason to use those simple ways already provided to make it less problematic. Calling really private methods as functions is one way for me to make it less problematic, or using your expression, making the problem virtually go away ever more.

ihb

Read argumentation in its context!

In reply to Re^8: Private Methods Meditation by ihb
in thread Private Methods Meditation by theAcolyte

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.