Why getter and setter methods are evil explains, uh, why getter and setter methods are evil. Don't ask for the information you need to do the work; ask the object that has the information to do the work for you, it advises.

I hadn't really thought about this, but it strikes me as good advice. Looking through my own code, I see almost no simple setter methods, and few getters. I do use 'is' type getters fairly frequently, though. This feels OK to me.

This isn't the same thing as Python's reason for avoiding getters and setters, BTW. Python's descriptors mean that you can directly access object attributes without breaking encapsulation, making getters and setters very un-Pythonic.

Update September 9th: Having thought about this overnight, I'm a little concerned that this might be a bit too purist, a bit too principle of least privilege. Yes, so long as the designer of the class has anticipated every need that a client of the class might have, it's better to encapsulate firmly, and to prevent anything unanticipated from happening. In the real world, the designer hasn't thought of everything.

Have you ever raged that a method or attribute that you need to access has been marked private, because the designer of the class that you are using didn't anticipate your every need? I know I have.

Still, the designer should provide a named method for everything for which he/she does anticipate a need. Access to an object's attributes, be it via setters and getters. or directly, strikes me as a code smell.