5.5. Visibility Rules

Note:

For convenience, we’ll use the word “type” in this section to refer to classes and traits generically, as opposed to referring to member type declarations. We’ll include those when we use the term “member” generically, unless otherwise indicated.

Most object-oriented languages have constructs to constrain the visibility (or scope) of type and type-member declarations. These constructs support the object-oriented form of encapsulation, where only the essential public abstraction of a class or trait is exposed and implementation information is hidden from view.