About classes and OOP in Python

[Magnus Lycka]

Michele Simionato wrote:
> Roy Smith wrote:
> <snip>
>> That being said, you can indeed have private data in Python.  Just prefix
>> your variable names with two underscores (i.e. __foo), and they effectively
>> become private.  Yes, you can bypass this if you really want to, but then
>> again, you can bypass private in C++ too.
> 
> Wrong, _foo is a *private* name (in the sense "don't touch me!"), __foo
> on the contrary is a *protected* name ("touch me, touch me, don't worry
> I am protected against inheritance!").
> This is a common misconception, I made the error myself in the past.

While your wording makes sense, it's probably confusing for anyone
with a C++ background, where private roughly means "only accessible
within the actual class" and protected roughly means "only accessible
within the class and other classes derived from it".