Why does python not have a mechanism for data hiding?

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Antoon Pardon a écrit :
> On 2008-06-04, NickC <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Jun 4, 4:09 am, "Russ P." <Russ.Paie... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What is it about leading underscores that bothers me? To me, they are
>>> like a small pebble in your shoe while you are on a hike. Yes, you can
>>> live with it, and it does no harm, but you still want to get rid of it.
>> With leading underscores, you can see *at the point of dereference*
>> that the code is accessing private data.

@NickC : InMyArms(tm) !

> But the leading underscore doesn't tell you whether it is your own
> private date, which you can use a you see fit, or those of someone
> else, which you have to be very carefull with.

That's why we have __name_mangling too. Consider '_' as 'protected' and 
'__' as private.