On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 11:50 AM, Russ P. <russ.paie...@gmail.com> wrote: > Here's the definition on the Wikipedia page for object oriented > programming (and it does *not* sound like Python classes): > > Encapsulation conceals the functional details of a class from objects > that send messages to it. ... Encapsulation is achieved by specifying > which classes may use the members of an object. The result is that > each object exposes to any class a certain interface — those members > accessible to that class. The reason for encapsulation is to prevent > clients of an interface from depending on those parts of the > implementation that are likely to change in future, thereby allowing > those changes to be made more easily, that is, without changes to > clients. For example, an interface can ensure that puppies can only be > added to an object of the class Dog by code in that class. Members are > often specified as public, protected or private, determining whether > they are available to all classes, sub-classes or only the defining > class. Some languages go further: Java uses the default access > modifier to restrict access also to classes in the same package, C# > and VB.NET reserve some members to classes in the same assembly using > keywords internal (C#) or Friend (VB.NET), and Eiffel and C++ allow > one to specify which classes may access any member.
You do realize this is a model and not strictly a requirement. Quite a few things in Python are done merely by convention. Don't get caught up. --JamesMills -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
