Using access modifiers

Now that the basic syntax is no longer a mystery, let's get into the finer details of variable statements. Since we read code from left to right, it makes sense to begin our variable deep-dive with the keyword that traditionally comes first – an access modifier.

Take a quick look back at the variables we used in the preceding chapter in LearningCurve and you'll see they had an extra keyword at the front of their statements: public. This is the variable's access modifier. Think of it as a security setting, determining who and what can access the variable's information.

If you include a modifier, the updated syntax recipe we put together at the beginning of this chapter will look like this:

accessModifier dataType uniqueName = value;

While explicit access modifiers aren&apos...