Do not make methods protected unless you want them to be visible as public

One of the protection levels in Delphi is protected. Originally meant for the class itself, that level is also visible to “friends”: anything in the same unit, for example:

unit BusinessLogicUnit;

interface

type
  TBusinessLogic = class(TObject)
  protected
     Procedure Foo();
     // ...
  public
     // ...
  end;

implementation

// ...

end.

You can even access them from outside that unit by using a trick like below.

Some people use the protected section so that unit tests can assess them using the below trick.

Do not do that!

It means anyone can use that trick, often doing more damage than good.

In this case, the trick was abused by a clever programmer that was relatively new to the code base. It resulted in unintended side effects.

unit HackUnit;

interface

implementation

uses
  BusinessLogicUnit;

type
  TBusinessLogicHack = class(TBusinessLogic);

procedure Hack;
var
  Instance: TBusinessLogicHack;
begin
  Instance := TBusinessLogicHack.Create();
  try
    Instance.Foo();
  finally
    Instance.Free();
  end;
end;

end.

Of course you can still access it like below.

It is slightly longer, but more importantly: much better shows the intent and how that intent is accomplished.

unit GoodUsageUnit;

interface

implementation

uses
  BusinessLogicUnit;

type
  TBusinessLogicDescendant = class(TBusinessLogic)
  public
    procedure Foo();
  end;

procedure TBusinessLogicDescendant.Foo();
begin
  inherited Foo();
  // ...
end;

procedure Usage;
var
  Instance: TBusinessLogicDescendant;
begin
  Instance := TBusinessLogicDescendant.Create();
  try
    Instance.Foo();
  finally
    Instance.Free();
  end;
end;

end.

–jeroen