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| Object-oriented Programming in C# Classes and Objects |
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| Program modification - the Fire Analogy | A fire correspond to a modification of a class.
We are interested in limiting the consequences of the fire.
In the world of OOP, encapsulation and visibility control
have the same effect as firewalls in a large building.
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A minor modification of a program may spread as a fire throughout the program. Such a fire may ruin most of the program in the sense that major parts of the program may need to be reprogrammed. |
 | A house - with firewalls - on fire. The fire is not likely to spread to other
apartments because of the solid firewalls. |
The use of firewalls prevents the spread of a fire. Similarly, encapsulation and visibility control prevent program modifications from having global consequences. |
Read more about the firewall analogy in the text book version of this material. |