Understanding encapsulation

- Java is an object-oriented language…and one of the most important principles…of object-oriented programming is encapsulation.…Encapsulation means that you're…packaging complex functionality to make it easy to use.…When you first Java applications,…most new programmers will put all…of their code into the main method,…and I've been doing that so far in this course.…But you quickly find out as your applications…get larger and more complex, that putting…all of the code into one place…makes it very difficult to manage.…

So instead you want to break the code out…into individual classes, grouping the functionality…as the logic dictates for your application.…This gives you some great advantages.…For example, not all functionality should be…available to all parts of an application.…And encapsulation lets you restrict access as needed.…Each class can be placed in a particular package,…and within the class, methods can be marked…as public, private, or protected, so only those parts…of the application that should be able…