Hello, I am really surprised that I am asking this question on the mailing list, but I really couldn't find it on python.org/doc.
Why is there no proper way to protect an instance variable from access in derived classes? I can perfectly understand the philosophy behind not protecting them from access in external code ("protection by convention"), but isn't it a major design flaw that when designing a derived class I first have to study the base classes source code? Otherwise I may always accidentally overwrite an instance variable used by the base class... Best, -Nikolaus -- »It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.« -J.H. Hardy PGP fingerprint: 5B93 61F8 4EA2 E279 ABF6 02CF A9AD B7F8 AE4E 425C -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list