Given the common need to have getter/setter methods on properties, many languages have adopted conventions which try and make it easier to implement/invoke them. For example, if you name a method foo in Ruby, you can invoke it by doing: obj.foo = 5.

In the .NET family of languages, there’s a concept of a property, which bundles the getter and setter methods together through some syntactical sugar. So, something like this, in VB.Net. 

    Public Property Foo() as Boolean
        Get
            return _foo
        End Get
        Set(val as Boolean)
            _foo = val
        end Set
    End Property

Now, you can do obj.Foo = FILE_NOT_FOUND, which actually invokes the Set method.

You can have more fun- the Property declaration can be marked as ReadOnly, and then you can skip the Set portion, or you can mark it as WriteOnly and skip the Get portion.

Dave S was given some time to pay down existing technical debt, and went hunting for bad code. He found this unusual way of making a property read only:

    hfRequiredDocsPresent = CBool(hfAllDocumentsUploaded.Value)
    Public Property hfRequiredDocsPresent() As Boolean
        Get
            Return CBool(hfAllDocumentsUploaded.Value)
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Boolean)
            value = CBool(hfAllDocumentsUploaded.Value)
        End Set
    End Property
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