Hello and welcome :-) When a method is « public » , it means that it is usable by any other object in the system.
In Pharo, methods are « public » and instance variables are « protected ». « protected » means that the instance variable is only usable from inside the class defining it or from subclasses of the class defining it. Some languages (as Java) define the concepts of « private » method / instance variable which means that the method / instance variable can only be accessed from the class defining it (and not its subclasses) and « package » which means that the method / instance variable can only be accessed from classes inside the same package. In fact, in java you can choose the visibility you want for each method / instance variable. In Pharo, this is fixed, methods are « public » and instance variables are « protected ». So you do not need to bother. All these concepts are related to encapsulation [1] which is an important concept of OOP. BTW, there are some posts related to your question on StackOverflow [2] which I recommend to you. Cheers, Julien Links: [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming#Encapsulation <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming#Encapsulation> [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2647289/what-does-it-mean-for-a-method-to-be-public-private-other-in-java <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2647289/what-does-it-mean-for-a-method-to-be-public-private-other-in-java> --- Julien Delplanque Doctorant à l’Université de Lille http://juliendelplanque.be/phd.html Equipe Rmod, Inria Bâtiment B 40, Avenue Halley 59650 Villeneuve d'Ascq Numéro de téléphone: +333 59 35 86 40 > Le 15 nov. 2018 à 05:43, iu136 via Pharo-users <pharo-users@lists.pharo.org> > a écrit : > > > De: iu136 <iu...@yahoo.com> > Objet: Question about pharo's object model > Date: 15 novembre 2018 à 05:43:45 UTC+1 > À: pharo-users@lists.pharo.org > > > hello guys > I'm new to programming, I started programming using pharo, I had a question > about pharo's object model. In object model we say, methods are public. What > does "public" mean here? > thanks > > > > -- > Sent from: http://forum.world.st/Pharo-Smalltalk-Users-f1310670.html > > >
