I never see anyone provide concrete references that really explain why getters and setters are such a horrible thing

Yes, I dislike emotional words like horrible and evil; writers employ these words as attention grabbers. As merlyn explains nicely, they are not always horrible or evil ... but can be if used unwisely. As usual, there are tradeoffs involved and mindless slogans cannot replace sound judgement, experience and good taste.

A couple of general references that discuss this are:

Allen Holub JavaWorld article Why getters/setters are evil
AccessorsAreEvil
TellDontAsk

In reply to Re^3: Are lvalue methods (as properties) a good idea? by eyepopslikeamosquito
in thread Are lvalue methods (as properties) a good idea? by jplindstrom

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