On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 10:42 PM Marco Sulla <Marco.Sulla.Python@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, 23 May 2021 at 14:35, Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, May 23, 2021 at 10:30 PM Marco Sulla <Marco.Sulla.Python@gmail.com> wrote:
I think the only reason to introduce something like `private` is refactoring. If you added a `_variable` and later you decided to expose it, you have to change it to `variable`. This is something that in languages like Java is not necessary, you have only to change the variable from private to public. This sometimes bothered me in Python.
Since you started with it private, you should be able to solve this with a simple search-and-replace within the class's own definition. Nothing outside the class should be affected. If it's that hard to replace "self._variable" with "self.variable"
And, in non-trivial cases, it is :)
I'm curious as to what sort of non-trivial cases you have to deal with, where you have something harder than search-and-replace, yet you have to change your mind about whether something's private or public. Are your private members so poorly named that "._variable" comes up a lot? Do you yearn for actual refactoring tools - which do exist?
then you can always create a property to make it available under both names.
I use property a lot, but I noticed that the majority of programmers do not use them. Also asyncio, written by Guido himself, uses normal getters and setters. Maybe @property slows down the code?
Or maybe most Python programmers don't think in terms of private members, and it's easier to just make something public from the start. ChrisA