Accessor messages in Smalltalk, a pure Object-Oriented Programming environment, have been that trivial for a long time. See: http://www.jmcsweeney.co.uk/computi

Accessor messages in Smalltalk, a pure Object-Oriented Programming environment, have been that trivial for a long time. See: http://www.jmcsweeney.co.uk/computing/m206/accessors.php http://www.jmcsweeney.co.uk/computing/m206/accessors.php The issue, as I see it, isn't the ease of creating accessors; the issue is that students do not seem to learn about the practices you've mentioned. I demonstrate "Tell, Don't Ask", "Information Hiding", and "Encapsulation" in the following presentation: http://whitemagicsoftware.com/encapsulation.pdf http://whitemagicsoftware.com/encapsulation.pdf