james_027 wrote: > i am very new to python, not knowing much about good design. I have an > object here for example a Customer object, where I need to retrieve a > info which has a number of lines of code to get it. > > my question is weather what approach should I use? to use the property > which is from the python new class style as I understand or simple use > function that will return the the info I needed. [snip] > While both approach would get the job done, I don't know much about > the performance, benefits, design philosophy between the two approach.
I tend to view property as only something you use for the purposes of backwards compatibility. So if you started with something as a simple attribute and you later realize that it needs to do some computation, you can use properties to keep the same API. However, if I know right off the bat that I need to do some computation to return a result, then I'll always prefer a method. People expect a method call to take some computation. People don't always expect that from a simple attribute access. So I think it's more predictable for your users if you use a method when there's any real work being done. STeVe -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
