Why use private for message ?

[stephpy]

On this class:

https://github.com/magento/magento2/blob/master/app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Model/Type/Onepage.php

Why $_customerEmailExistsMessage is defined as private, there is no setter and _customerEmailExistsMessage is setted from constructor statically.

The only one possibility we have to change this message is to play with i18n.

Is there a reason ? I think this property should be protected. No ?

[magento-team]

Hi stephpy. Thanks for the feedback.

It appears that there was no specific reason to make it private. It has been changed to protected (will be rolled out with one of the next code update).