Defining getter and setter methods

In our previous section, we needed to know the value of a button in a given row and column of the button matrix for a given pattern. If the value was True, we colored the button green. If the value was False, we colored it in an alternative color.

We can get the value of the button by calling this line of code:

self.all_patterns[self.current_pattern.get()]['is_button_clicked_list'][row][col]

Notice how this line has four sets of square brackets, []. Since this nested super-scripting business can soon get ugly, we encapsulated this logic in a method named get_button_value(row, col). Now, whenever we need to get a button's value, we can simply call this method with the right parameters.

Now our code will not be littered with those ugly nested superscripts. Whenever we want to get the value of a button, we can call the get_button_value(row, col) method, which has a nice indicative name for the work it does. Isn't this much more readable and comprehensible than...