Professional PHP

There is a coding pattern that I see (and have used) in PHP code that defines generic methods on a class for setting and getting properties.
 
function set($name, $value);
function get($name);
 Google code search for examples
Some times there are some ancillary methods to deal with unsetting, checking for existence, setting via an array, or dealing with references in [...]

I was reading this post over at Dynamically Typed and I was thinking to myself, this looks like something that Harry Fuecks would write. A glance at the top of the page confirmed my suspicions. Harry has been writing a few new blog posts over there. That and the resurrection of the [...]