Object-Oriented Programming, unit: Encapsulation and Access Control. Core concepts, terminology, and worked-example cues a college student meets for this unit, building on prior units without repeating them. Front: a term, concept, or short problem cue. Back: the definition, explanation, or answer.
16 cards · basic cards · AI-written, checked twice. Edit anything.
- What is encapsulation?
- Bundling data and methods together while restricting direct access to internal state
- Why is encapsulation useful?
- It protects an object's internal state from unintended interference and misuse
- What is access control, in OOP?
- Rules determining which parts of a program can access a class's members
- What does the 'private' access modifier do?
- Restricts a member's visibility to within its own class only
- What does the 'public' access modifier do?
- Allows a member to be accessed from anywhere the object is visible
- What does the 'protected' access modifier do?
- Allows access within the class and its subclasses, but not from unrelated code
- What is information hiding?
- Concealing internal implementation details from outside code that uses an object
- What is a data abstraction, in the context of encapsulation?
- Exposing only relevant, essential details of an object while hiding complexity
- Why are instance variables commonly made private?
- To prevent external code from directly modifying an object's state in invalid ways
- What is validation logic often placed in, when using encapsulation?
- Setter methods, to ensure only valid values are assigned to instance variables
- What is a package (or namespace), in relation to access control?
- A grouping of related classes, sometimes affecting default access visibility
- What is coupling, in software design?
- The degree to which different classes or modules depend on each other's internals
- Why does encapsulation reduce coupling?
- It hides internal details, so other code depends only on a class's public interface
- What is an interface's role in supporting encapsulation?
- It defines what a class can do without revealing how it does it
- What is immutability, in object design?
- Designing an object so its state cannot be changed after creation
FlashKeepers