Is it best practice to always use accessor methods, even when accessing local state?

Question

Consider the following class:

public class Person 
{
private Integer age;

// Standard Accessors
public Integer getAge() {
    return age;
}

public void setAge(Integer age) {
    this.age = age;
}

public String getAgeAsTextString()
{
    if (this.age == 20)
    {
        return "Twenty";
    }
    return "Unknown";
}
}

I just have 1 Integer, and 2 accessors. If I want to create a utility method that returns the objects' state as a String, is it best practice to refer to the class variable as this.age, or should I be using getAge()?

Is there a best practice or is it down to developer discression?

Answer 1

I'd say its down to developer discretion.

I slightly prefer using the getter method. And if you have a class hierarchy, it's good to expose internal state via protected getters.