[Insight-developers] When are variables made private vs protected?

[Bill Lorensen]

For the most part, member variables should always be private. They can
be accessed via Set/Get methods. A Get method, in optimized code,
should be as efficient as direct access to the variable. This
separates the implementation of a variable from its access, a form of
information hiding.

On Fri, Dec 2, 2011 at 2:00 PM, David Doria <daviddoria at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am curious how the decision to make member variables private vs
> protected is made. For example, I was trying to derive from
> itkMedianImageFunction and I noticed that the member:
>
> unsigned int m_NeighborhoodRadius;
>
> is private. Therefore, in my subclass, I have to create a new
> member+accessor+mutator for the same purpose. Why would all members in
> ITK not be protected so that they can be more easily subclassed?
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
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