What is the naming convention for accessor of a 'private' variable?

[Peng Yu]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 8:47 PM, Chris Rebert <clp2 at rebertia.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 6:27 PM, Peng Yu <pengyu.ut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
>>
>> The above webpage states the following naming convention. Such a
>> variable can be an internal variable in a class. I'm wondering what is
>> the naming convention for the method that access such variable.
>>
>>    - _single_leading_underscore: weak "internal use" indicator.  E.g. "from M
>>      import *" does not import objects whose name starts with an underscore.
>
> If there's a method to access the variable, then it's not all that
> private, is it?
> Accessor methods are not Pythonic. Just make the attribute public by
> not prefixing it with an underscore.
>
> See also "Python is Not Java":
> http://dirtsimple.org/2004/12/python-is-not-java.html

I don't quite understand the following paragraph from the above
webpage. Would you please give me an example to help me understand it?

"Here's what you do. You write a function that contains a function.
The inner function is a template for the functions that you're writing
over and over again, but with variables in it for all the things that
vary from one case of the function to the next. The outer function
takes parameters that have the same names as those variables, and
returns the inner function. Then, every place where you'd otherwise be
writing yet another function, simply call the outer function, and
assign the return value to the name you want the "duplicated" function
to appear. Now, if you need to change how the pattern works, you only
have to change it in one place: the template."