While I'm at it, a couple of questions. Where is this "no mutators" idea coming from? What exactly is the damage that results from having mutators?

I've read the Java world article and all it's saying is don't create public mutuators for fields that are for internal use only. Blindingly obvious advice but I can understand why it may have been needed. I imagine the sequence of events in Javaland to be

• direct field access is bad (ok so far)
• make accessor methods and change public fields to private (still ok)
• get in the habit of making all fields private (fine, just remember that some are private because you don't want direct access and some are private because you don't want any access)
• now that everything is called private, get confused and start adding accessors for all private fields (doh!)

That last step would probably be performed by newer programmers, copying without understanding, seeing that public fields are not being used at all and that private + accessor seems to be "correct".

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