Why is protected not also implicit package?

[Sergey Gromov]

Frank Benoit <keinfarbton at googlemail.com> wrote:
> While porting Java code this is kind of annoying.
> In Java a protected member is also accessbible from the package.
> And I think this would also make sense for D.

I think that D is closer to C++ than to Java. In C++, private and 
protected are class-scoped. In D they're module-scoped but are easily 
reduced to class scope if you write one class per module.

D way allows for better control over method visibility: you can separate 
polymorphic interface and library interface. Java forces you to publish 
any polymorphic methods to the library.

As to porting, it sounds easier to make all protected members public---
this doesn't chane much compared to Java.

-- 
SnakE