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copied!<p>It depends on who knows that the methods should be called that way.</p> <ul> <li><p><strong>Consumer knows:</strong> For example, if the object is a <code>Stream</code>, usually the <em>consumer</em> of the Stream decides when to <code>Open</code>, <code>Read</code>, and <code>Close</code> the stream. Obviously, these methods need to be public or else the object can't be used properly. (*)</p></li> <li><p><strong>Object knows:</strong> If the <em>object</em> knows the order of the methods (e.g. it's a <code>TaxForm</code> and has to make calculations in a specific order), then those methods should be private and exposed through a single higher-level step (e.g. <code>ComputeFederalTax</code> will invoke <code>CalculateDeductions</code>, <code>AdjustGrossIncome</code>, and <code>DeductStateIncome</code>).</p></li> <li><p>If the number of steps is more than a handful, you will want to consider a <code>Strategy</code> instead of having the steps coupled directly into the object. Then you can change things around without mucking too much with the object or its interface.</p></li> </ul> <p>In your specific case, it does not appear that a consumer of your object cares about anything other than a processing operation taking place. Since it doesn't need to know about the order in which those steps happen, there should be just a single public method called <code>Process</code> (or something to that effect).</p> <hr/> <p>(*) However, usually the object knows at least the <em>order</em> in which the methods can be called to prevent an invalid state, even if it doesn't know <em>when</em> to actually do the steps. That is, the object should know enough to prevent itself from getting into a nonsensical state; throwing some sort of exception if you try to call <code>Close</code> before <code>Open</code> is a good example of this.</p>

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