Maybe it is in the DB but I'm not changing it in the database because the part of my program that wants to mutate the Employee doesn't (and shouldn't) need to know about databases. Also, storing it in a DB does not always mean that the mutator handles updating in the DB. If persistence is handled by a framework outside the object then the mutator remains trivial and storage is handled outside of your classes.

Basically it comes down to the fact that many objects have chunks of them that behave exactly like a record/struct in that they are nothing more than passive fields that get twiddled by outsiders. These plain old fields should still not be part of your public interface because if they need to be something more than just plain old fields in the future you're shafted (unless you're in a language that makes it possible for an object to intercept direct twiddling of it's fields and do fancy stuff - Python's properties for example).

If you don't provide mutators, even for trivial fields, then you are just storing up pain for the future.

In reply to Re^10: Assignable Subroutines by fergal
in thread Assignable Subroutines by dragonchild

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