An object has state by definition. More to the point, an object has agency: It gets to decide how to interpret messages sent to it (this is why we say that put

An object has state by definition. More to the point, an object has agency: It gets to decide how to interpret messages sent to it (this is why we say that putting setters on classes turns objects back into mere data structures [1]). http://www.devx.com/enterprise/the-vision-of-kay-and-fielding-growable-systems-that-last-for-decades.html http://www.devx.com/enterprise/the-vision-of-kay-and-fieldin... (right after the seventh paragraph)