Name: rm29839 Date: 04/30/98


protected presently has both package scope as well as allowing sub-classes
access to the member. This is almost like package scope, which is the default. It
allows anyone to access protected members if they just put a package statement
in their code. We as OO programmers definitely need a protected that *only* allows
sub-classes to access protected members, just like in C++. I understand that
allowing package scope for protected memberswas necessary before there were
 inner classes, but now it is now it is no longer needed. As far as breaking
existing code, a deprecation warning could be issued when protected members
are accessed outside of sub-classes, and this then could become an error later
in another version. I'm sure that this "feature" was used very little, and when it
was used, it was used mostly to gain "illegitimate" access to protected members
in classes that the author didn't write (without sub-classing).

This is a very important issue for an OO language and breaks the encapsulation
of classes
(Review ID: 27976)
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