Why does python not have a mechanism for data hiding?

[Russ P.]

On Jun 5, 2:27 pm, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfr... at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 11:36:28 -0700 (PDT), "Russ P."
> <Russ.Paie... at gmail.com> declaimed the following in comp.lang.python:
>
> > would need to use a "mangled" name to access private data or methods.
> > But you will be using the name many times, you can reassign your own
> > name, of course, so the mangled name need not appear more than once
> > where it is needed.
>
>         Which will break the first time the "innards" rebind a value to the
> mangled name, as the "simplified" external name will still be bound to
> the previous value.

I'm not sure you understood what I meant. In current Python, if I need
access to data element __XX in class YourClass, I can use
ZZ._YourClass__XX, but if I don't want to clutter my code with that
mangled name, I can just write

XX = ZZ._YourClass__XX

and refer to it from that point on as XX. Obviously if the meaning of
__XX changes within class ZZ, this will break, but that's why you are
supposed to avoid using private data in the first place.