Software Architect's Handbook

Reasons for information hiding

Information hiding is useful at all levels of design. Only exposing the details that need to be known reduces complexity, which improves maintainability. Unless you are specifically interested in the internal details, you do not need to concern yourself with them.

Another one of the key reasons for information hiding is to hide design decisions from the rest of the software system. This is particularly beneficial if the design decision might change. By hiding a design decision, if the decision needs to be changed, it minimizes the amount and extent of the modifications that will be necessary. It provides the flexibility to make changes later if it is necessary to do so.

Whether the design decision is to use ...