Access modifier best practice in C# vs Java

Question

I understand that the rule of thumb in OOD is to minimize access to all members of a given object as best as can be reasonably accomplished.

C# and Java both seem to implement the same set of access modifiers; however, something which has bewildered me for some time now is why Java classes seem to be mostly declared as public while C# classes seem mostly to be declared as default. Is there some subtlety to these languages which imposes these differences, or is it simply a matter of convention or what?

I find myself frequently going through my C# code (I habitually make most classes public, excepting inner classes, anonymous classes, and other classes of narrow scope and usefulness) in an attempt to please the compiler, however I wonder if I may be missing something important.

Answer 1

I think you answered your question. As per Joshua Bloch, "The rule of thumb is simple, make each class or member as inaccessible as possible." Effective Java

Answer 2

Java's scoping is slightly different than C#'s scoping.

This is talked about briefly in C# From a Java Developer's Perspective's The Same, But Different: Access Modifiers. This document is slightly dated now, but is still mostly relevant.

That list has two mistakes:

1. C#'s internal is equivalent to Java's default scope (which is its own scope).
2. C#'s internal protected is equivalent to Java's protected.

Additionally, the above document doesn't mention what the default access modifiers are for classes, only for methods and properties/variables.

For reference, the default scope for classes in c# is internal. Java's is its usual default scope, as described earlier.