In 1989, Kent Beck and Ward Cunningham taught classes on OO design, and they had problems getting people to abandon the get/set mentality. They characterized the problem as follows:

“The most difficult problem in teaching object-oriented programming is getting the learner to give up the global knowledge of control that is possible with procedural programs, and rely on the local knowledge of objects to accomplish their tasks. Novice designs are littered with regressions to global thinking: gratuitous global variables, unnecessary pointers, and inappropriate reliance on the implementation of other objects.”

[http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-09-2003/jw-0905-toolbox.html]