Cytoscape WikiGaryBader -9/30/05 - why do the setters take basic types e.g. double and the getters return Object types e.g. Double? Would it be simpler for the user to expect one or the other consistently?
EthanCerami -9/30/05 - Originally, I had the getters/setters use the same primitive types, e.g. boolean, double, String, etc. But, this becomes a problem for the getters. For example, if you request a boolean, but there is no value for this id/attributeName pair, what do you return? false? Hence, I switched to using wrappers. That way, if there is no id/attributeName pair, you get back a null. I then decided to keep the setters with primitive types, primarily for programmer convenience.