Don't write your classes like this example. The get and set methods completely expose the private instance variable "grid". This allows a client module to do anything they want with the grid, which defeats the entire purpose of encapsulating it in a class. In essence, you have just made grid a global variable.

The addItem() and isEmpty() methods are fine, assuming they perform appropriate data validity checking on the parameters.

/** 
* The Board class models the two dimensional gameboard.  
*/ 
 
public class Board  
{  
private Item[][] grid; 
 
public Board() 
{ (body omitted) } 
 
public void addItem(Item itemToAdd, Point position)  
{ (body omitted) } 
 
public boolean isEmpty(Point currentPosition, Point nextPos, Point nextNextPos) 
{ (body omitted) } 
 
public Item[][] getGrid()  
{ 
    return grid;  
}  
 
public void setGrid(Item[][] aGrid)  
{ 
    grid = aGrid;  
} 
 
}