Does Python really follow its philosophy of "Readability counts"?

[Bruno Desthuilliers]

Russ P. a écrit :
(snip)
> I think the issue here is the distinction between hacking and software
> engineering. I may be misusing the term "hacking," but I do not mean
> it in a pejoritive sense. I just mean getting things done fast without
> a lot of concern for safety, security, and long-term maintainability
> and scalability.

I do feel concerned by these issues.

> I'm not a computer scientist, but it seems to me that
> Python is great for hacking and good for software engineering, but it
> is not ideal for software engineering.
> 
> What Paul is suggesting, I think, is that Python should move in the
> direction of software engineering. Whether that can be done without
> compromising its hacking versatility is certainly a valid question,
> but if it can be done, then why not do it?
> 
> Certainly one basic principle of software engineering is data
> encapsulation. Tacking new attributes onto class instances all over
> the place

There's a clear distinction between "making wise use of dynamicity" and 
"tacking new attributes onto class instances all over the place".

> may be convenient and useful in many cases, but it is not
> consistent with good software engineering.

simplicity is "good software engineering". Accidental complexity is not. 
Dynamism _can_ greatly reduce accidental complexity.


> If the programmer could
> somehow disallow it in certain classes,

Already possible - you just have to provide your own implementation of 
__setattr__.

> that could be useful,
> providing that those who wish to continue doing it would be free to do
> so. If class attributes could somehow be declared private,

The important point is to make implementation distinct from interface - 
which we already know how to do -, and sometimes to prevent _accidental_ 
overriding of some critical implementation attributes - which is also 
already implemented. Enforcing access restriction is, from experience, 
just pointless.

"""
patient : doctor, when I do this, it hurts
doctor : well, don't do it, then.
"""