Hi, Brian Moseley wrote:
i think the burden of proof should be on the person who wants to keep methods private ;)
I'm not so familiar with the jcr-server design that I can comment on design decisions there, but in general i disagree with the above principle. :-)
A method should be private if there is no specific reason otherwise. A non-private method is a part of the external API contract of a class and carries with it all the burden of API compatibility. The narrower the API contract of a class is the easier the class is to restructure to match an evolving environment. A narrower API is also easier to document and maintain. In general it is much easier to relax the visibility of a method when needed than to restrict the availability of a non-private method.
BR, Jukka Zitting
