I agree that a very common Java pattern is to create getters/setters for every private field. Which is just stupid, might as well have the members be public. To

I agree that a very common Java pattern is to create getters/setters for every private field. Which is just stupid, might as well have the members be public. To use the popular phrase, Java classes like that have a "bad code smell". It tells me that the author of the class doesn't really understand how it should be used. I think a well-designed class will have private members and public member function interfaces that don't resemble each other very much.