Does altering a private member decouple the property's value?

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Ethan Kennerly a écrit :
> Thanks for the help!  Using the "class name (object)" syntax fixed my
> problem.
> 
(snip)
 >
> I am having to unteach myself some of the defensive programming techniques
> in C++, such as using name mangling to ensure privacy, when privacy is not
> the most important criterion.  For prototyping, starting public and going
> "private" later is more efficient when refactoring. 

(just a clarification for Python new-comers reading this thread)

This is the usual way to handle public (non-callable) attributes - 
starting with a plain attribute, then refactoring to a property if and 
when needed.

But this doesn't imply you should only use 'public' attributes. While it 
has no real notion of privacy (ie: no language-enforced access 
restriction), Python has a well-established convention for marking 
attributes and methods as "protected" : prefixing the name with a 
*single* underscore. This won't invoke any name-mangling nor prevent 
direct access to the attribute, but warn anyone that this attribute is 
implementation, IOW "don't mess with it or you're on your own".