From: Matt Gushee <mgushee@...>
Date: 2002-09-01T19:32:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

On Sun, Sep 01, 2002 at 06:53:40PM +0900, Luc Heinrich wrote:
> On dimanche, sep 1, 2002, at 03:12 Europe/Paris, Gavin Sinclair wrote:
> 
> >- indentation-as-syntax
> >- explicit "self" parameter to methods
> 
> May I add:
> 
> - lots of useless '_' everywhere...

I beg to differ. The underscores in Python are far from useless:

  _foo()        is a (pseudo-) protected method*
  __bar()       is a (pseudo-) private method*
  __foobar__()  is a voodoo method (unless it's __init__ or __del__)
  class_        lets you use self-explanatory names without conflict
                  with reserved words

Now if you called them ugly, I'd be the first to agree with that.
Personally I think the underscore character should be eradicated from
the face of the earth. Call me weird, but I like the LISP convention of
everything lowercase and hyphenated.
  
 * Python deliberately lacks true access control, the idea being that
   "we're all adults here." So 'protected' just means the name doesn't
   get exported, but you can still access it in qualified form;
   'private' means the name gets mangled so that you would have to 
   write some really ugly code to get at it.

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/