title: Whats the point of using a @synthesized getter?
body: <p>There's a lot out there on why to go through a @synthesized setter (instead of accessing the ivar directly), for retain/copy memory management, or for KVO.</p>
  
  <p>But I can't think of a good argument for why you'd care if you used <code>foo = self.bar</code>, or <code>foo = bar</code>.</p>
  
  <p>The only thing I can think of is for data abstraction...if bar is a declared property, then the underlying implementation could change and no one else would care. (Of course, in this case, you'd probably not be using a @synthesized getter)</p>
  
  <p>So...any compelling reasons to use @synthesized getters?  Is there some threading issues that make it important?</p>
  
  <p>For that matter, what does the @synthesized code even do, other than just return the ivar?</p>