Why less emphasis on private data?

[Thomas Ploch]

time.swift at gmail.com schrieb:
> Coming from a C++ / C# background, the lack of emphasis on private data
> seems weird to me. I've often found wrapping private data useful to
> prevent bugs and enforce error checking..
> It appears to me (perhaps wrongly) that Python prefers to leave class
> data public.  What is the logic behind that choice?
> 
> Thanks any insight.
> 

Python doesn't prefer public data in classes. It leaves the choice to
the programmer. You can define your own private instance variables (or
functions) by using a '__' prefix:

example:
class Foo:
	def __init__(self, data):
		self.__data = data
	
	def get_data(self):
		return self.__data


 >>> f = Foo('bar')
 >>> f.__data
 Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 AttributeError: Foo instance has no attribute '__data'
 >>> f.get_data()
 'bar'