[SerializeField] - "You will almost never need this."

Hello guys!

So I just browsing the Scripting API today, and found this questionable phase under the [SerializeField] documentation: "You will almost never need this.".

Why would anyone write this? When learning OOP concepts and encapsulation, the first thing you learn is, don't use public variables, use instead setter and getter methods.

Using [SerializeField], you can expose your private variables to the Inspector, without actually exposing it to other scripts.

Imho, don't teach bad practices for beginners, especially at the offical API. Please change the documentation to this: "You will almost always need to use this, instead of using public variables (except some rare cases)."

 

Seconded, I use [SerializeField] extensively to manage the public interface of a class against it's serialization. Numerous state members which need serialization but should not be the concern of client code.

Change this Unity, you're advocating for bad choices, and from a position of authority. This should not be in your documentation.

 

Completely agreed here.

 

I probably use SerializeField as much as I use any other keyword. Usage depends greatly on the type of project, but "you will almost never need this" has needlessly freaked out a few of my coworkers in the past, so I agree it should probably be removed.

 

https://docs.unity3d.com/2018.1/Documentation/ScriptReference/SerializeField.html ???

 

Seems like you deleted the line! Still around in 2017.4 docs:

https://docs.unity3d.com/2017.4/Documentation/ScriptReference/SerializeField.html