>The point is to create a 'clean' interface for your object. If some properties and methods are designed to be used only internally by the class itself, they should not be exposed in the instance or subclass' interface. This was the purpose in the design of Protected and hidden properties, but it seems that something was lost along the way, and the functionality is dysfunctionality.

btw, in VFP6 you can create even cleaner interfaces using assign and access methods - you can even implement some sort of 'friend' classes etc.

Arnon