This works:

class ButtonCountObserver {
  private var cnt = 0  // private field
  def count = cnt      // reader method
  def count_=(newCount: Int) = cnt = newCount  // writer method
 // ...
}

val b = new ButtonCountObserver 
b.count = 0

But this doesn't class ButtonCountObserver { private var cnt = 0 // private field def count_=(newCount: Int) = cnt = newCount // writer method // ... }

val b = new ButtonCountObserver 
b.count = 0

I get: error: value count is not a member of ButtonCountObserver

Is it possible to create a setter (with the syntactic sugar) without a getter?