title: Protected and private methods in Rails
body: <p>Method visibility in Ruby (public, protected, and private methods) has been well explained in places like <a href="http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2007/2/23/method-visibility-in-ruby" rel="noreferrer">this blog post</a>. But in Ruby on Rails it seems slightly different than it would be in a regular Ruby application because of the way the framework is set up. So, in Rails models, controllers, helpers, tests, etc., when is/isn't it appropriate to use protected or private methods?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong>: Thanks for the answers so far. I understand the concept of protected and private in Ruby, but I'm looking more for an explanation of the typical way those types of visibility are used within the context of the various pieces of a Rails app (models, controllers, helpers, tests). For example, public controller methods are action methods, protected methods in the application controller are used for "helper methods" that need to be accessed by multiple controllers, etc.</p>