title: Why does Spring allow controller annotated request mappings on private methods?
body: <p>Just came accross this today in a Spring MVC cotnroller class, </p>
  
  <pre><code>    @RequestMapping(value = { "/foo/*" }, method = { RequestMethod.GET})
      private String doThing(final WebRequest request) {
          ...
          return "jsp";
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is making it a bit harder to write a test, I'll probably change it to public but what's the point of allowing mappings on private methods?</p>