Single leading dash in member variable names?

[e.doxtator at gmail.com]

On Tuesday, September 11, 2012 2:06:45 PM UTC-5, Ian wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 12:45 PM,  I wrote:
> 
> > All
> 
> >
> 
> > Python noob here.  Trying to understand a particular syntax:
> 
> >
> 
> > class stuff:
> 
> >     def __init__(self):
> 
> >          self._bongo = "BongoWorld"
> 
> >
> 
> > -----------
> 
> >
> 
> > What is the significance of the leading underscore in "self._bongo"?  I've seen this a few times and, after looking through PEP 8, I didn't see anything relevant, but I could have missed it.
> 
> 
> 
> Single leading underscore is a convention indicating that the name
> 
> should be considered private and not used externally.  It's a softer
> 
> version of the double leading underscore that means basically the same
> 
> thing but has syntactic significance.

Thank you!

PEP 8 says this is bad form.  What do you think?