Accessors in Python (getters and setters)

[mystilleef]

Bruno Desthuilliers wrote:
> mystilleef wrote:
> > Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote:
> >
> >>In <1152778446.236509.151730 at 35g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, mystilleef
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>Maric Michaud wrote:
> (snip)
>
> >>>>But they are in Python and that is the python's philosophy. All attribute or
> >>>>method not beginning with an '_' *is* API.
> >>>
> >>>Right, and what if I want to change a private API to a public one. How
> >>>does that solve my naming issues.
> >>
> >>Then you have to change all references to that private attribute.  What's
> >>the problem here?  As it was private I would expect to find all the
> >>references "nearby" in the same module or class.
> >
> > Right, but tmp isn't private.
>
> Right, but that's your choice. Would you complain about "almost any
> other language" if you had to hunt a badly named public method thru 27KLOC ?
>
Methods are used to perform actions. Data attributes usually aren't. We
are on different planes.
> (snip)
>
> >>Python is not almost all other languages and in Python code you usually
> >>won't find those trivial getters and setters because we have properties if
> >>the access might become a bit more complex in the future.
> >>
> > Ha! I bet you haven't read too many Python codes.
> >
> I have read tens of thousands LOC of Python in the seven past years.
> Computed attributes came in with 2.2x IIRC, so there's a lot of 'legacy'
> code that uses getters and setters. Porting this code to a
> computed-attribute style would break all client code. Having the two
> schemes coexisting would make for bloated APIs and
> too-many-ways-to-do-it. So we live with this until Py3K. And none of
> these considerations contradicts the point that there's no more use for
> javaish getters/setters in Python, nor that javaish getters/setters are
> not pythonic.
>
I never made any contradictory points regarding the matter. I wanted to
know the pythonic way of using accessors in Python. That's all. You are
the person making wild assumptions about my queries, programming
background and code.