Jeremy Bowers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > [ ... ] the Python community, and in general the dynamic language >community, has become increasingly confident that private variables don't >solve *real* problems.
Years of writing and maintaining others' C++ and Java code (plus one year of maintaining Python code and rather more writing) has led me to believe that there is no justification for truly private variables. "protected" yes, I can see the argument for, but denying derived classes full access to your inner workings just leads to clumsier (less readable and more bug-prone) implementations derivations. (The same applies to Java's "final".) And it's based on the hubris that you are a better programmer than anyone who might want to extend your class and can forsee all circumstances in which it might be subclassed. -- \S -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- http://www.chaos.org.uk/~sion/ ___ | "Frankly I have no feelings towards penguins one way or the other" \X/ | -- Arthur C. Clarke her nu becomež se bera eadward ofdun hlęddre heafdes bęce bump bump bump -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
