From: William Djaja Tjokroaminata <billtj@...>
Date: 2002-09-06T01:08:07+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby aesthetics

Hi Gavin,

It seems that we agree on most of the stuff.  I just want to add that,
being a "flexible" language Python is, there is a way to make data private
in Python, as discussed in:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=920m9h011uh%40news2.newsguy.com&rnum=4&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dtjokroaminata%2Bgroup:comp.lang.python.*%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D920m9h011uh%2540news2.newsguy.com%26rnum%3D4

I think it was my last discussion in the python group before I found Ruby,
where information hiding in terms of private data member is standard, and
I switched right away...

Regards,

Bill
===========================================================================
Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@soyabean.com.au> wrote:
>> The biggest problem for me is that in
>> Python an object is pretty much like a hash; this is equivalent as having
>> all data members as public in C++.

> It is a hash.  You can add data members to the object outside the class, just
> by making a typing mistake.  Some may say flexible.  I just sneeze.

>> (Sure, there is a way around this in
>> Python, but it has to be manually made by the programmer, not built-in in
>> the language itself.)

> AFAIK, you can't make data private in Python.

>> In Ruby, on the other hand, all data members are
>> private by default (which is the recommended practice in C++), unless we
>> explicitly make it otherwise (through the accessor methods).

> Data members cannot be made public to the outside world.  They are invisible.
> The accessor methods are methods, only incidentally related to members :)