is python Object oriented??

[rdmurray at bitdance.com]

Quoth "Hendrik van Rooyen" <mail at microcorp.co.za>:
> <rd.....murray at bitdance.com> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > You, sir, should be programming in some language other than Python.
> 
> Why?  - Python is object oriented, but I can write whole systems
> without defining a single class.
> By analogy, if data hiding is added to language, I could write a 
> whole system without hiding a single item.
> Conversely, the lack of data hiding is perceived as a weakness,
> and IMO harms the advocacy of the language - This is proven
> by your statement above, whereby you are driving a user away,
> simply because the language, in one small aspect, does not
> give him what he wants, and the tenor of this thread has been
> very much: "That's how it is - like it or lump it", and no amount
> of careful explanation of why people want the feature has cut 
> any ice - It has all the time been countered with statements
> about how the proponents of private attributes "don't need it",
> (as if they are plain dumb), that an underscore convention is 
> "just as good", (It isn't), that you could crack it if you really 
> tried, (so what?), and other more specious reasons.
> 
> This is IMO an arrogant attitude - 

My apologies!!  There was a smiley missing from the end of that statement
above.  However, you are right, even with the smiley added it would
still be arrogant, and I regret that.

The problem is that there is a fundamental philosophical divide here,
and I don't think the advocates on either side are going to convince
the other.

This debate has happened many times.  

--RDM