> > What if Java suddenly said that all properties are suddenly private, and > can only be accessed through getter/setter methods? >
If Java announced that the next major version was to make the change after 95% of userland developers favoured it and over 2/3rds of their internals team did, I'd think "huh ok I guess they have good reasons". For 20 years people have developed code based on that feature. It was never > considered an error, and often not even considered bad practice You seem to be arguing against *ever* changing something that a majority once thought was good, and fundamental to a given system. Lots of things fall into that category - restricting voting to men, segregation, etc. >
