Encapsulation hides variables or some implementation that may be changed so often in a class to prevent outsiders access it directly. They must access it via getter and setter methods. Abstraction is used to hide something too, but in a higher degree (class, interface). Clients who use an abstract class (or interface) do not care … Read more
The definition you have quoted above is too general for a beginner to understand completely and so let me just simplify it to something we see practically. Compiler: is an umbrella term to describe a program that takes source code written in one language and produce a (or many) output file in some other language. … Read more
Go to the source! Grady Booch says (in Object Oriented Analysis and Design, page 49, second edition): Abstraction and encapsulation are complementary concepts: abstraction focuses on the observable behavior of an object… encapsulation focuses upon the implementation that gives rise to this behavior… encapsulation is most often achieved through information hiding, which is the process … Read more
Most answers here focus on OOP but encapsulation begins much earlier: Every function is an encapsulation; in pseudocode: point x = { 1, 4 } point y = { 23, 42 } numeric d = distance(x, y) Here, distance encapsulates the calculation of the (Euclidean) distance between two points in a plane: it hides implementation … Read more
There are actually many good reasons to consider using accessors rather than directly exposing fields of a class – beyond just the argument of encapsulation and making future changes easier. Here are the some of the reasons I am aware of: Encapsulation of behavior associated with getting or setting the property – this allows additional … Read more