AS1 OOP: Prototypes
by senocular
Encapsulation
The idea of encapsulation is that objects are “self
contained” and the processes and properties of their inner
workings should not be exposed in their use. This lends to
the idea of objects being little black boxes.
The little black box is the solve-all solution to your
problems. No one really knows how one works, it just does.
In goes your problem, out comes the solution. There has been
much talk recently about the little black box for home
entertainment systems – the all-in-one
VCR/DVD/DVR/cable/stereo/video game system/whatever. As a
consumer, you won’t need to know how it works internally,
just that it does work and it does everything for you that
you would ever need in a home entertainment system. One of
the ideas of OOP is to have little black box objects that do
what they need to do without the developer having to worry
about how it does it.
Also, as a developer, you would want to tamper-proof your
object definitions so other people (or even yourself for
that matter) can’t get into the inner workings of such
objects and throw a wrench in the gears thus possibly
causing problems in functionality. You want objects to be
self- contained, portable entities that function as they
should when they should without worry of failure (which is
important in portability – the ability to move your object
classes from one project to the next).
Some programming languages offer means to protect
interior class workings giving you the ability to define
public and private properties and methods. Public values are
those readily accessible from an instance of a class – those
which are supposed to be used to operate the instance. This
would be the remote control to your black box home
entertainment center. The remote represents you, the
viewer’s, control. It doesn’t let you mess with resister 5A
inside the box, but it does provide you with an interface
for using the box. These equate often to method functions.
Private values are those which are not accessible accept
from within the inner workings of that object. This includes
that 5A resister and anything else in the box that makes it
work but the viewer isn’t supposed to know or mess with.
Sadly, Actionscript 1.0 does not support public or
privately defined properties or methods. In Actionscript
everything is public and openly accessible. It can be seen
as a good thing as it does give you more control. However,
in terms of being an OOP language, it’s a hindrance. They
don’t call it Flash Actionscript for nothing; it’s really
exposed. Thank you, thank you. I’m here all night.
