[fogus]

> Your view differs from some of the OO language designers.

Oh come on, that's not true at all. C++ just happens to use access modifiers to provide its brand of encapsulation. However, languages without the `private` reserve word can still provide encapsulation -- they're not the same thing.

What if Java had no notion of private? It would be very difficult to provide data hiding (not that they're hidden anyway, but that's beside the point), so instead you would be forced to put little flags on your names and warnings in your documentation delineating the parts that people shouldn't touch. If they did then that's their fault no?