For some reason, the original post never made it to my newsreader, so apologies for breaking threading by replying to a reply when I mean to answer the original post.
On Wed, 28 Sep 2005 12:05:21 +0100, Simon Brunning wrote: > On 9/28/05, could ildg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Python is wonderful except that it has no real private and protected >> properties and methods. Do you know any language that has real private and protected attributes? There may be some. I don't know. But anyone who says "C++" is fooling themselves: #define private public And your "real private and protected" objects are no longer private or protected. Simon wrote: > If *real* private and protected are *enforced*, Python will be the > poorer for it. See > <http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.python/msg/b977ed1312e10b21>. That's a wonderful, if long, essay. I don't think the author is wrong, but I think his choice of terminology does Python a disservice (it is hard to argue in favour of anarchy and chaos even to enlightened sensible managers, let alone old dinosaurs and control-freaks). It is too easy to mistakenly read that essay as saying that Python finds a middle ground between two binary opposites of control and chaos. That's not the case: chaos is a privative, not an actual thing. Chaos is what you have when you have zero control. The question should be, how much control a language needs: control is a continuous variable, not a binary on/off state. Less control gives more flexibility. More control reduces opportunities. That's a minor quibble really, the essay is grand and should be read by all developers. -- Steven. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
