Why does python not have a mechanism for data hiding?

[Russ P.]

On Jun 10, 1:04 am, Bruno Desthuilliers <bruno.
42.desthuilli... at websiteburo.invalid> wrote:

> If you hope to get a general agreement here in favor of a useless
> keyword that don't bring anything to the language, then yes, I'm afraid
> you're wasting your time.

Actually, what I hope to do is to "take something away" from the
language, and that is the need to clutter my identifiers with leading
underscores.

I find that I spend the vast majority of my programming time working
on the "private" aspects of my code, and I just don't want to look at
leading underscores everywhere. So I usually just leave them off and
resort to a separate user guide to specify the public interface.

I'll bet many Python programmers do the same. How many Python
programmers do you think use leading underscores on every private data
member or method, or even most of them for that matter? I'll bet not
many. (See the original post on this thread.) That means that this
particular aspect of Python is basically encouraging sloppy
programming practices.

What I don't understand is your visceral hostility to the idea of a
"priv" or "private" keyword. If it offends you, you wouldn't need to
use it in your own code. You would be perfectly free to continue using
the leading-underscore convention (unless your employer tells you
otherwise, of course).

I get the impression that Python suits your own purposes and you
really don't care much about what purpose others might have for it. I
am using it to develop a research prototype of a major safety-critical
system. I chose Python because it enhances my productivity and has a
clean syntax, but my prototype will eventually have to be re-written
in another language. I took a risk in choosing Python, and I would
feel better about it if Python would move up to the next level with
more advanced features such as (optional) static typing and private
declarations. But every time I propose something like that, I get all
kinds of flak from people here who do their hacking and care little
about anyone else's needs.

With a few relatively small improvements, Python could expand its
domain considerably and make major inroads into territory that is now
dominated by C++, Java, and other statically compiled languages. But
that won't happen if reactionary hackers stand in the way.

Side note: I've been looking at Scala, and I like what I see.  It may
actually be more appropriate for my needs, but I have so much invested
in Python at this point that the switch will not be easy.