Thomas
You are totally missing the point. If you use a Public Variable you CANNOT enforce encapsulation!
The fact that many programmers do not bother to use encapsulation properly is neither here, nor there and does not alter anything. Bad design and bad practice is still bad design and bad practice whether the reason is ignorance, laziness or anything else.
Public Variables are bad design and bad practice.
Regards
Andy Kramek
Microsoft MVP (Visual FoxPro)
Tightline Computers Inc, Akron Ohio, USA