Access and Assign are just about the coolest thing in the new version. This is something you'll think of new uses for all the time. The way it works is that you can specify for proper each property whether it has an access and/or assign method. The access method fires every time someone tries to read a property. The assign every time you try to assign a value to a property (even if it's the same value that's already there).

This addresses a common complaint that you should only allow access to properties through methods. Since you can actually change that value that's returned to the user (the user here is whatever code that asked for the property's value) with access or the value a property gets set to using assign, it gives you full control over how the properties are used. You could validate any value someone tries to assign to a property or create a property that's really calculated on the fly whenever it's queried.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Ken Levy showed a way to simulate a collection using access and assign. I have'nt looked into that yet but, knowing Ken, it's probably pretty cool.

>We'll just have to ask our UT friends to give us the scoop. I'm particularly curious about the Access and Assign methods. Anybody?
>
>Kendall