I think this highlights a problem with javascript more than OOP: We're trying to fit it into uses cases that are simply too complex for its design. It wasn't made to build your goddamn bank accounting system, it was made so that "nonprofessional programmers" could animate things on websites.
But it also highlights a problem it doesn't take about: Language in computer science and how it affects how we think about things.
In this instance, public and private are terrible names. They had to tell us in programming classes that they're not related to security, which means that the privacy metaphor is a terrible idea because it's not instinctual.
This in turn causes us to shoehorn class design into things they perhaps shouldn't be. At this point, for complex programs we should be describing things in a much more complex way than "accessible from the outside or not". As the article points out, it doesn't matter that the classes are external, because you can just as well break things from the inside.
This is a complex problem, but I think the beginning of a solution is to a) Depend on meta-information (or better implement a flexible, non-arbitrary "access" structure) and b) Use the right tool for the right job, in this case not JS.
I think this highlights a problem with javascript more than OOP: We're trying to fit it into uses cases that are simply too complex for its design. It wasn't made to build your goddamn bank accounting system, it was made so that "nonprofessional programmers" could animate things on websites.
But it also highlights a problem it doesn't take about: Language in computer science and how it affects how we think about things.
In this instance, public and private are terrible names. They had to tell us in programming classes that they're not related to security, which means that the privacy metaphor is a terrible idea because it's not instinctual.
This in turn causes us to shoehorn class design into things they perhaps shouldn't be. At this point, for complex programs we should be describing things in a much more complex way than "accessible from the outside or not". As the article points out, it doesn't matter that the classes are external, because you can just as well break things from the inside.
This is a complex problem, but I think the beginning of a solution is to a) Depend on meta-information (or better implement a flexible, non-arbitrary "access" structure) and b) Use the right tool for the right job, in this case not JS.