Reasons to use private instead of protected for fields and methods

Question

This is a rather basic OO question, but one that's been bugging me for some time.

I tend to avoid using the 'private' visibility modifier for my fields and methods in favor of protected.

This is because, generally, I don't see any use in hiding the implementation between base class and child class, except when I want to set specific guidelines for the extension of my classes (i.e. in frameworks). For the majority of cases I think trying to limit how my class will be extended either by me or by other users is not beneficial.

But, for the majority of people, the private modifier is usually the default choice when defining a non-public field/method.

So, can you list use cases for private? Is there a major reason for always using private? Or do you also think it's overused?

Answer 1

There is some consensus that one should prefer composition over inheritance in OOP. There are several reasons for this (google if you're interested), but the main part is that:

• inheritance is seldom the best tool and is not as flexible as other solutions
• the protected members/fields form an interface towards your subclasses
• interfaces (and assumptions about their future use) are tricky to get right and document properly

Therefore, if you choose to make your class inheritable, you should do so conciously and with all the pros and cons in mind.

Hence, it's better not to make the class inheritable and instead make sure it's as flexible as possible (and no more) by using other means.

This is mostly obvious in larger frameworks where your class's usage is beyond your control. For your own little app, you won't notice this as much, but it (inheritance-by-default) will bite you in the behind sooner or later if you're not careful.

Alternatives

Composition means that you'd expose customizability through explicit (fully abstract) interfaces (virtual or template-based).

So, instead of having an Vehicle base class with a virtual drive() function (along with everything else, such as an integer for price, etc.), you'd have a Vehicle class taking a Motor interface object, and that Motor interface only exposes the drive() function. Now you can add and re-use any sort of motor anywhere (more or less. :).

Answer 2

There are two situations where it matters whether a member is protected or private:

1. If a derived class could benefit from using a member, making the member `protected` would allow it to do so, while making it `private` would deny it that benefit.
2. If a future version of the base class could benefit by not having the member behave as it does in the present version, making the member `private` would allow that future version to change the behavior (or eliminate the member entirely), while making it `protected` would require all future versions of the class to keep the same behavior, thus denying them the benefit that could be reaped from changing it.

If one can imagine a realistic scenario where a derived class might benefit from being able to access the member, and cannot imagine a scenario where the base class might benefit from changing its behavior, then the member should be protected [assuming, of course, that it shouldn't be public]. If one cannot imagine a scenario where a derived class would get much benefit from accessing the member directly, but one can imagine scenarios where a future version of the base class might benefit by changing it, then it should be private. Those cases are pretty clear and straightforward.

If there isn't any plausible scenario where the base class would benefit from changing the member, I would suggest that one should lean toward making it protected. Some would say the "YAGNI" (You Ain't Gonna Need It) principle favors private, but I disagree. If you're is expecting others to inherit the class, making a member private doesn't assume "YAGNI", but rather "HAGNI" (He's Not Gonna Need It). Unless "you" are going to need to change the behavior of the item in a future version of the class, "you" ain't gonna need it to be private. By contrast, in many cases you'll have no way of predicting what consumers of your class might need. That doesn't mean one should make members protected without first trying to identify ways one might benefit from changing them, since YAGNI isn't really applicable to either decision. YAGNI applies in cases where it will be possible to deal with a future need if and when it is encountered, so there's no need to deal with it now. A decision to make a member of a class which is given to other programmers private or protected implies a decision as to which type of potential future need will be provided for, and will make it difficult to provide for the other.

Sometimes both scenarios will be plausible, in which case it may be helpful to offer two classes--one of which exposes the members in question and a class derived from that which does not (there's no standard idiomatic was for a derived class to hide members inherited from its parent, though declaring new members which have the same names but no compilable functionality and are marked with an Obsolete attribute would have that effect). As an example of the trade-offs involved, consider List<T>. If the type exposed the backing array as a protected member, it would be possible to define a derived type CompareExchangeableList<T> where T:Class which included a member T CompareExchangeItem(index, T T newValue, T oldvalue) which would return Interlocked.CompareExchange(_backingArray[index], newValue, oldValue); such a type could be used by any code which expected a List<T>, but code which knew the instance was a CompareExchangeableList<T> could use the CompareExchangeItem on it. Unfortunately, because List<T> does not expose the backing array to derived classes, it is impossible to define a type which allows CompareExchange on list items but which would still be useable by code expecting a List<T>.

Still, that's not to imply that exposing the backing array would have been completely without cost; even though all extant implementations of List<T> use a single backing array, Microsoft might implement future versions to use multiple arrays when a list would otherwise grow beyond 84K, so as to avoid the inefficiencies associated with the Large Object Heap. If the backing array was exposed as protected member, it would be impossible to implement such a change without breaking any code that relied upon that member.

Actually, the ideal thing might have been to balance those interests by providing a protected member which, given a list-item index, will return an array segment which contains the indicated item. If there's only one array, the method would always return a reference to that array, with an offset of zero, a starting subscript of zero, and a length equal to the list length. If a future version of List<T> split the array into multiple pieces, the method could allow derived classes to efficiently access segments of the array in ways that would not be possible without such access [e.g. using Array.Copy] but List<T> could change the way it manages its backing store without breaking properly-written derived classes. Improperly-written derived classes could get broken if the base implementation changes, but that's the fault of the derived class, not the base.

Answer 3

I just prefer private than protected in the default case because I'm following the principle to hide as much as possibility and that's why set the visibility as low as possible.

Answer 4

I've been programming OOP since C++ in 1993 and Java in 1995. Time and again I've seen a need to augment or revise a class, typically adding extra functionality tightly integrated with the class. The OOP way to do so is to subclass the base class and make the changes in the subclass. For example a base class field originally referred to only elsewhere in the base class is needed for some other action, or some other activity must change a value of the field (or one of the field's contained members). If that field is private in the base class then the subclass cannot access it, cannot extend the functionality. If the field is protected it can do so.

Subclasses have a special relationship to the base class that other classes elsewhere in the class hierarchy don't have: they inherit the base class members. The purpose of inheritance is to access base class members; private thwarts inheritance. How is the base class developer supposed to know that no subclasses will ever need to access a member? In some cases that can be clear, but private should be the exception rather than the rule. Developers subclassing the base class have the base class source code, so their alternative is to revise the base class directly (perhaps just changing private status to protected before subclassing). That's not clean, good practice, but that's what private makes you do.

Answer 5

I am reaching here. However, I think that the use of Protected member variables should be made conciously, because you not only plan to inherit, but also because there is a solid reason derived classed shouldn't use the Property Setters/Getters defined on the base class.

In OOP, we "encapsulate" the member fields so that we can excercise control over how they properties the represent are accessed and changed. When we define a getter/setter on our base for a member variable, we are essentially saying that THIS is how I want this variable to be referenced/used.

While there are design-driven exceptions in which one might need to alter the behavior created in the base class getter/setter methods, it seems to me that this would be a decision made after careful consideration of alternatives.

For Example, when I find myself needing to access a member field from a derived class directly, instead of through the getter/setter, I start thinking maybe that particular Property should be defined as abstract, or even moved to the derived class. This depends upon how broad the hierarchy is, and any number of additional considerations. But to me, stepping around the public Property defined on the base class begins to smell.

Of course, in many cases, it "doesn't matter" because we are not implementing anything within the getter/setter beyond access to the variable. But again, if this is the case, the derived class can just as easily access through the getter/setter. This also protects against hard-to-find bugs later, if employed consistently. If the behgavior of the getter/setter for a member field on the base class is changed in some way, and a derived class references the Protected field directly, there is the potential for trouble.

Answer 6

You are on the right track. You make something private, because your implementation is dependant on it not being changed either by a user or descendant.

I default to private and then make a conscious decision about whether and how much of the inner workings I'm going to expose, you seem to work on the basis, that it will be exposed anyway, so get on with it. As long as we both remember to cross all the eyes and dot all the tees, we are good.

Another way to look at it is this. If you make it private, some one might not be able to do what they want with your implementation.

If you don't make it private, someone may be able to do something you really don't want them to do with your implementation.

Answer 7

I am a beginner at OOP but have been around since the first articles in ACM and IEEE. From what I remember, this style of development was more for modelling something. In the real world, things including processes and operations would have "private, protected, and public" elements. So to be true to the object .....

Out side of modelling something, programming is more about solving a problem. The issue of "private, protected, and public" elements is only a concern when it relates to making a reliable solution. As a problem solver, I would not make the mistake of getting cough up in how others are using MY solution to solve their own problems. Now keep in mind that a main reason for the issue of ...., was to allow a place for data checking (i.e., verifying the data is in a valid range and structure before using it in your object).

With that in mind, if your code solves the problem it was designed for, you have done your job. If others need your solution to solve the same or a simular problem - Well, do you really need to control how they do it. I would say, "only if you are getting some benefit for it or you know the weaknesses in your design, so you need to protect some things."

Answer 8

In my idea, if you are using DI (Dependency Injection) in your project and you are using it to inject some interfaces in your class (by constructor) to use them in your code, then they should be protected, cause usually these types of classes are more like services not data keepers.

But if you want to use attributes to save some data in your class, then privates would be better.